tin A & ft ft ft ft K A aS * . WALPOLE GREEN MIRROR Y PUBL C LIBRARY THE BRANCH LIBRARIES 3 3333 04 THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY THE BRANCH LIBRARIES MM MID-MANHATTAN LIBRARY LL Literature & Language Department 455 Fifth Avenue New York, New York 10016 Books circulate for four weeks (28 days) unless stamped "1 week" or "2 weeks." No renewals are allowed. A fine will be charged for each overdue book at the rate of^cents per calendar day for adult books andjpcents per calendar day for chil- dren's books. form 02 7 OVE&DUB FUTES - 10 CENTS PER BAY QCT 2 1985 THE RISING CITY: II THE GREEN MIRROR HUGH WALPOLE NOVELS BY HUGH WALPOLE STUDIES IN PLACE THE DARK FOREST THE GOLDEN SCARECROW THE WOODEN HORSE MARADICK AT FORTY THE GODS AND MR. PERRIN TWO PROLOGUES THE PRELUDE TO ADVENTURE FORTITUDE THE RISING CITY 1. THE DUCHESS OF WREXE 2. THE GREEN MIRROR THE GREEN MIRROR A QUIET STORY BY ,; HUGH WALPOLE AUTHOR OP "THE DUCHESS OP WREXE, " "FORTITUDE," "THE DARK FOREST," ETC. NEW YORK GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OP AMERICA ' ft PHOF&RTT OF CITT OF NEW YOM TO DOROTHY WHO FIRST INTRODUCED ME TO KATHERINE . /; "There's the feather bed element here brother, achf and not only that! There's an attraction here — here you have the end of the world, an anchorage, a quiet haven, the navel of the earth, the three fishes that are the foundation of the world, the essence of pancakes, of savoury fish-pies, of the evening samovar, of soft sighs and warm shawls, and hot stoves to sleep on — as snug as though you were dead, and yet you're alive — the advantages of both at once. " DOSTOEFFSKY. vi MY DEAR DOBOTHY, As I think yon know, this book was finished in the month of August, 1914. I did not look at it again until I revised it during my convalescence after an illness in the autumn of 1915. We are now in a world very different from that with which this story deals, and it must, I am afraid, appear slow in development and uneventful in movement, belonging, in style and method and subject, to a day that seems to us already old-fashioned. But I will frankly confess that I have too warm a personal affection for Katherine, Philip, Henry and Millicent to be able to destroy utterly the signs and traditions of their exist- ence, nor can I feel my book to be quite old-fashioned when the love of England, which I have tried to make the text of it, has in many of us survived so triumphantly changes and catastrophes and victories that have shaken into ruin almost every other faith we held. Let this be my excuse for giving you, with my constant affection, this uneventful story. Yours always, HUGH WALPOLE. PETROGBAD, May llth, 1917. vn CONTENTS BOOK I: THE RAID CHAPTER PAGE I THE CEREMONY 13 II THE WINTER AFTERNOON 32 III KATHERINE . 45 IV THE FOREST 64 [ V THE FINEST THING 81 VI THE SHOCK 106 BOOK II: THE FEATHER BED I KATHERINE IN LOVE 129 II MRS. TRENCHARD 139 III LIFE AND HENRY 164 IV GARTH IN ROSELANDS . . 195 V THE FEAST " ...... 218 VI SUNDAY 241 ROCHE ST. MARY MOOR 279 ix x CONTENTS BOOK III: KATHERINE AND ANNA CHAPTER PAGE I KATHERINE ALONE 299 II THE MIRROR 322 III ANNA AND MRS. TRENCHARD 344 IV THE WILD NIGHT 366 V THE TRENCHARDS 384 VI THE CEREMONY . 405 BOOK I THE RAID T3K cnr OF raw teat '11* »-»y.y%_ "* *»1^B •«\\ TORK rtfiirr ^^h^^K— VB CHAPTER I THE CEREMONY THE fog had swallowed up the house, and the house had submitted. So thick was this fog that the towers of Westminster Abbey, the river, and the fat complacency of the church in the middle of the Square, even the three Plane Trees in front of the old gate and the heavy old-fashioned porch had all vanished together, leaving in their place, the rattle of a cab, the barking of a dog, isolated sounds that ascended, plaintively, from a lost, a submerged world. The House had, indeed, in its time seen many fogs for it had known its first one in the days of Queen Anne and even then it had yielded, without surprise and without curiosity, to its tyranny. On the brighest of days this was a solemn, unenter- prising unimaginative building, standing four-square to all the winds, its windows planted stolidly, securely, its vigorous propriety well suited to its safe, unagitated surroundings. Its faded red brick had weathered many London storms and would weather many more: that old, quiet Square, with its uneven stones, its church, and its plane-trees, had the Abbey, the Houses of Parliament, the river for its guardians . . . the skies might fall, the Thames burst into a flaming fire, Rundle Square would not stir from its tranquillity. The old house — No. 5, Rundle Square — had for its most charming feature its entrance. First came an old iron gate guarded, on either side, by weatherbeaten stone pillars. Then a cobbled path, with little green lawns to right and left of 13 14 THE GEEEN MIRROR it, ran to the door whose stolidity was crowned with an old porch of dim red brick. This was unusual enough for Lon- don, but there the gate, the little garden, the Porch had stood for some hundreds of years, and that Progress that had al- ready its throttling fingers about London's neck, had, as yet, left Rundle Square to its staid propriety. Westminster abides, like a little Cathedral town, at the heart of London. One is led to it, through Whitehall, through Victoria Street, through Belgravia, over Westminster Bridge with preparatory caution. The thunder of London sinks, as the traveller approaches, dying gradually as though the spirit of the town warned you, with his finger at his lip. To the roar of the traffic there succeeds the solemn striking of Big Ben, the chiming of the Abbey Bells ; so narrow and winding are many of the little streets that such traffic as penetrates them proceeds slowly, cautiously, almost sleepily; there are old buildings and grass squares, many clergymen, schoolboys in black gowns and battered top hats, and at the corners one may see policemen, motionless, somnolent, sta- tioned one supposes, to threaten disturbance or agitation. There is, it seems, no impulse here to pile many more events upon the lap of the day than the poor thing can de- cently hold. Behind the windows of Westminster life is pass- ing, surely, with easy tranquillity; the very door-bells are, many of them, old and comfortable, unsuited to any frantic ringing; there does not sound, through every hour, the whir- ring clang of workmen flinging, with eager haste, into the reluctant air, hideous and contemptuous buildings ; dust does* not rise in blinding clouds from the tortured corpses of old and happy houses. . . . Those who live here live long. No. 5, Rundle Square then, had its destiny in pleasant places. Upon a fine summer evening the old red brick with its windows staring complacently upon a comfortable world showed a fine colour. Its very chimneys were square and solid, its eaves and water pipes regular and mathematical. Whatever horrid catastrophe might convulse the rest of Lon- THE CEREMONY 15 don, No. 5 would suffer no hurt; the god of propriety — the strongest of all the gods — had it beneath His care. Now behind the Fog it waited, as it had waited so often before, with certain assurance, for its release. ii Inside the house at about half-past four, upon this after- noon November 8th, in the year 1902, young Henry Trench- ard was sitting alone ; he was straining his eyes over a book that interested him so deeply that he could not leave it in order to switch on the electric light ; his long nose stuck into the book's very heart and his eyelashes almost brushed the paper. The drawing-room where he was had caught some of the fog and kept it, and Henry Trenchard's only light was the fading glow of a red cavernous fire. Henry Trenchard, now nineteen years of age, had known, in all those nine- teen years, no change in that old drawing-room. As an ugly and tiresome baby he had wailed before the sombre indifference of that same old stiff green wall-paper — a little brighter then perhaps, — had sprawled upon the same old green carpet, had begged to be allowed to play with the same collection of little scent bottles and stones and rings and miniatures that lay now, in the same decent symmetry, in the same narrow glass-topped table over by the window. It was by shape and design a heavy room, slipping into its true spirit with the London dusk, the London fog, the London lamp-lit winter afternoon, seeming awkward, stiff, almost af- fronted before the sunshine and summer weather. One or two Trenchards — two soldiers and a Bishop — were there in heavy old gold frames, two ponderous glass-fronted book- cases guarded from any frivolous touch high stiff-backed vol- umes of Gibbons and Richardson and Hooker. There were some old water-colours of faded green lawns, dim rocks and seas with neglected boats upon the sand — • 16 THE GKEEN MIKEOR all these painted in the stiff precision of the 'thirties and the 'forties, smoked and fogged a little in their thin black frames. Upon one round-table indeed there was a concession to the modern spirit in the latest numbers of the "Cornhill" and "Blackwood" magazines, the "Quarterly Beview" and the aHibbert Journal." The chairs in the room were for the most part stiff with gilt backs and wore a "Don't you dare to sit down upon me" eye, but two armchairs, near the fire, of old green leather were comfortable enough and upon one of these Henry was now sitting. Above the wide stone fireplace was a large old gold mirror, a mirror that took into its expanse the whole of the room, so that, standing before it, with your back to the door, you could see everything that happened behind you. The Mirror was old and gave to the view that it embraced some old comfortable touch so that everything within it was soft and still and at rest. Now, in the gloom and shadow, the reflection was green and dark with the only point of colour the fading fire. Before it a massive gold clock with the figures of the Three Graces stiff and angular at its sum- mit ticked away as though it were the voice of a very old gentleman telling an interminable story. It served indeed for the voice of the mirror itself. . . . Henry was reading a novel that showed upon its back Mudie's bright yellow label. He was reading, as the clock struck half-past four, these words : — "I sat on the stump of a tree at his feet, and below us stretched the land, the great expanse of the forests, sombre under the sunshine, rolling like a sea, with glints of wind- ing rivers, the grey spots of villages, and here and there a clearing, like an islet of light amongst the dark waves of con- tinuous tree-tops. A brooding gloom lay over this vast and monotonous landscape ; the light fell on it as if into an abyss. The land devoured the sunshine ; only far off, along the coast, the empty ocean, smooth and polished within the faint bays, seemed to rise up to the sky in a wall of steel. THE CEREMONY 17 And there I was with him, high on the sunshine on the top of that historic hill. . . ." The striking of the clock brought him away from the book with a jerk, so deep had he been sunk in it that he looked now about the dusky room with a startled uncertain gaze. The familiar place settled once more about him and, with a little sigh, he sank back into the chair. His thin bony legs stuck out in front of him; one trouser-leg was hitched up and his sock, falling down over his boot, left bare part of his calf; his boots had not been laced tightly and the tongues had slipped aside, showing his sock. He was a long thin youth, his hair untidy, his black tie up at the back of his collar ; one white and rather ragged cuff had slipped down over his wrist, the other was invisible. His eyes were grey and weak, he had a long pointed nose with two freckles on the very end of it, but his mouth was kindly although too large and in- determinate. His cheeks were thin and showed high cheek- bones; his chin was pronounced enough to be strong but nevertheless helped him very little. He was untidy and ungainly but not entirely unattrac- tive ; his growth was at the stage when nature has not made up its mind as to the next, the final move. That may, after all, be something very pleasant. . . . His eyes now were dreamy and soft because he was think- ing of the book. No book, perhaps, in all his life before had moved him so deeply and he was very often moved — but, as a rule, by cheap and sentimental emotions. He knew that he was cheap; he knew that he was senti- mental ; he, very often, hated and despised himself. He could see the Forests "rolling like a sea". It was as though he, himself, had been perched upon that high, bright hill, and he was exalted, he felt, with that same exultation; the space, the freedom, the liberty, the picture of a world wherein anything might happen, where heroes, fugitives, scoundrels, cowards, conquerors all alike might win their salvation. "Room for everyone ... no one to pull one up — 18 THE GKEEN MIRROK No one to make one ashamed of what one says and does. ~No crowd watching one's every movement. Adventures for the wishing and courage to meet them." He looked about the room and hated it, — the old, shabby, hemmed-in thing! He hated this life to which he was con- demned ; he hated himself, his world, his uninspiring future. "My God, I must do something! ... I ivill do some- thing ! . . . But suppose I can't !" His head fell again — suppose he were out in that other world, there in the heart of those dark forests, suppose that he found that he did no better there than here ! . . . That would be, indeed, the most terrible thing of all ! He gazed up into the Mirror, saw in it the reflection of the room, the green walls, the green carpet, the old faded green place like moss covering dead ground. Soft, damp, dark, — and beyond outside the Mirror, the world of the Forests — "the great expanse of Forests" and "beyond, the Ocean — smooth and polished . . . rising up to the sky in a wall of steel." His people, his family, his many, many relations, his world, he thought, were all inside the Mirror — all embedded in that green, soft, silent enclosure. He saw, stretching from one end of England to the other, in all Provincial towns, in neat little houses with neat little gardens, in Cathedral Cities with their sequestered Closes, in villages with the deep green lanes leading up to the rectory gardens, in old Country houses hemmed in by wide stretching fields, in little lost places by the sea, all these persons happily, peacefully sunk up to their very necks in the green moss. Within the Mirror this . . . Outside the Mirror the rolling forests guarded by the shining wall of sea. His own family passed before him. His grandfather, his great-aunt Sarah, his mother and his father, Aunt Aggie and Aunt Betty, Uncle Tim, Millicent, Katherine. . . . He paused then. The book slipped away and fell on to the floor. iTatherine . . . dear Katherine! He did not care what THE CEREMONY 19 she was ! And then, swept hy a fresh wave of feeling spring- ing up, stretching his arms, facing the room, he did not care what any of them were ! lie was the Idiot, the discontented, ungrateful Idiot ! He loved them all — he wouldn't change one of them, he wouldn't he in any other family in all the world ! The door opened; in came old Rocket, the staff and prop of the family, to turn up the lights, to poke up the fire. In a minute tea would come in. ... "Why, Mr. Henry, no fire nor lights !" He shufiled to the windows, pulling the great heavy curtains across them, his knees cracking, very slowly he bent down, picked up the book, and laid it carefully on the table next to the "Hibbert Journal." "I hope you've not been reading, Mr. Henry, in this bad light," he said. in Later, between nine and half-past, Henry was sitting with his father and his uncle, smoking and drinking after dinner. To-night was an evening of Ceremony — the Family Cere- mony of the year — therefore, although the meal had been an extremely festive one with many flowers, a perfect moun- tain of fruit in the huge silver bowl in the centre of the table, and the Most Sacred Of All Ports (produced on this occa- sion and Christmas Day) nevertheless only the Family had been present. No distant relations even, certainly no friends. . . . This was Grandfather Trenchard's birthdav. b The ladies vanished, there remained only Henry, his father and Uncle Tim. Henry was sitting there, very self-con- scious over his glass of Port. He was always self-conscious when Uncle Tim was present. Uncle Tim was a Faunder and was large-limbed and absent-minded like Henry's father. Uncle Tim had a wild head of grey hair, a badly-kept grey beard and clothed his long, loose figure in long, loose garments. He was here to- 20 THE GREEN MIRROR day and gone to-morrow, preferred the country to the town and had a little house down in Glebeshire, where he led an untidy bachelor existence whose motive impulses were birds and flowers. Henry was very fond of Uncle Tim; he liked his untidi- ness, his careless geniality, his freedom and his happiness. Henry's father — George Trenchard — was "splendid" — that, thought Henry, was the only possible word — and the boy, surveying other persons' fathers, wondered why Kath- erine, Millicent, and himself should have been chosen out of all the world to be so favoured. George Trenchard, at this time about sixty years of age, was over six feet in height and broad in proportion. He was growing too stout ; his hair was grey and the top of his head bald ; his eyes were brown and absent-minded, his mouth large with a lurking humour in its curves; his cheeks were fat and round and there was the beginning of a double chin. He walked, always, in a rambling, rolling kind of way, like a sea-captain on shore, still balancing himself to the swing of his vessel, his hands deep sunk in his trouser-pockets. Henry had been privileged, sometimes, to see him, when, ab- sorbed in the evolution of an essay or the Chapter of some book (he is, of course, one of our foremost authorities on the early Nineteenth Century period of English Literature, especially Hazlitt and De Quincey) he rolled up and down his study, with his head back, his hand sunk in his pockets, whistling a little tune . . . very wonderful he seemed to Henry then. He was the most completely careless of optimists, refused to be brought down to any stern fact whatever, hated any strong emotion or stringent relations with anyone, treated his wife and children as the most delightful accidents against whom he had, most happily tumbled ; his kindness of heart was equalled only by the lightning speed with which he for- got the benefits that he had conferred and the persons upon whom he had conferred them . . . like a happy bird, he THE CEREMONY 21 went carolling through life. Alone, of all living beings, his daughter Katherine had bound him to her with cords; for the rest, he loved and forgot them all. Now, on this family occasion of his father's birthday- — his father was eighty-seven to-day — he was absolutely happy. He was proud of his family when any definite occasion, such as this, compelled him to think of it; he considered that it had all been a very jolly, pleasant dinner, that there would certainly follow a very jolly, pleasant evening. He liked, especially, to have his brother, Timothy, with him — he loved them all, bless their hearts — he felt, as he assured them, "Not a day more than twenty." "How do you really think Father is, George?" asked Timothy. "Sound as a bell," said Henry's father, "getting deaf of course — must expect that — but it's my belief that the harder his hearing the brighter his eyes — never knew anyone so sharp. Nothing escapes him, 'pon my soul." "Well," said George Trenchard, "I think it a most sat- isfactory thing that here we should all be again — healthy, happy, sound as so many bells — lively as crickets — not a hap- pier family in England." "Don't say that, George," said Uncle Tim, "most unlucky." "Nonsense," said George Trenchard, brushing Uncle Tim aside like a fly, "Nonsense. We're a happy family, a healthy family and a united family." "I drink my gratitude to the God of Family Life, who- ever He is. . . ." He finished his glass of Port. "Here, Timothy, have another glass. It's a Port in a million, so it is." But Uncle Tim shook his head. "It's all very well, George, but you'll have to break up soon. The girls will be mar- rying— Katherine and Millicent — " "Rot," said George, "Millie's still at school." "She's coming home very soon — very shortly I believe. And besides you can't keep a family together as you used to. 22 THE GKEEN MIRROR You can't. No one cares about the home at all now-a-days. These youngsters will find that out soon enough. You'll be deserting the nest immediately, Henry, my friend, won't you ?" This sudden appeal, of course, confused Henry terribly. He choked over his wine, coloured crimson, stammered out: "No, Uncle Tim — Of course — Of course — not." George Trenchard looked at his son with approval. "That's right. Stick to your old father while you can. The matter with you, Tim, is that you live outside the world and don't know what's going on." "The matter with you, George, is," his brother, speaking slowly and carefully, replied, "That you haven't the ghost of an idea of what the modern world's like — not the ghost. Up in the clouds you are, and so's your whole family, my sister and all — But the young ones won't be up in the clouds al- ways, not a bit of it. They'll come down one day and then you'll see what you will see." "And what'll that be?" said George Trenchard, laughing a little scornfully. "Why you and Harriet doing Darby and Joan over the dying fire and no one else within a hundred miles of you — except a servant who's waiting for your clothes and sleeve- links." "There, Henry — Listen to that!" said his father, still laughing — "See what an ungrateful fellow you're going to be in a year or two !" Henry blushed, swallowed in his throat, smiled idioti- cally. They were all, he thought, laughing at him, but the effect was very pleasant and genial. . . . Moreover he was interested. He was, of course, one of the young ones and it was his future that was under dis- cussion. His mind hovered over the book that he had been reading that afternoon. Uncle Tim's words had very much the same effect upon Henry's mind that that book's words had had, although from a different angle so to speak. . . . THE CEREMONY 23 Henry's eyes lingered about a little silver dish that contained sugared cherries. . . . He liked immensely sugared cherries. Encouraged by the genial atmosphere he stretched out his hand, took two cherries, and swallowed them, but, in his agitation, so swiftly that he did not taste them at all. Then he drank two glasses of Port — he had never before drunk so much wine. He was conscious now that he must not, under any circumstances, drink any more. He was aware that he must control, very closely, his tongue; he told himself that the room was not in reality so golden and glowing a place as it now seemed to him, that it was only the same old dining-room with which he had all his life, been familiar. He convinced himself by a steady gaze that the great silver dish with the red and purple and golden fruit piled upon it was only a silver dish, was not a deep bowl whose sides, like silver walls stretched up right into the dim electric clusters of electric light hanging from the ceiling. He might convince himself of these facts, he might with a great effort steady the room that very, very slightly swayed about him . . . what he could not deny was that Life was gorgeous, that this was an Evening of all the Evenings, that he adored his father, his uncle and all the family to such a height and depth of devotion that, were he not exceedingly careful, he would burst into tears — burst into tears he must not because then would the stud in his shirt most assuredly abandon its restraints and shame him, for ever, before Uncle Tim. At this moment his father gave the command to move. Henry rose, very carefully, from his seat, steadied himself at the table for an instant, then, very, very gravely, with his eye upon his shirt-stud, followed his uncle from the room. IV He retained, throughout the rest of that eventful evening, the slightly exaggerated vision of the world. It was not that, 24 THE GKEEN MIKEOR as he followed his father and uncle into the drawing-room, he did not know what he would see. He would find them sitting there — Grandfather in his chair, his feet on a stool, his bony hands pressed upon his thin knees with that fierce, protesting pressure that represented so much in his grand- father. There would be, also, his Great- Aunt Sarah with her high pyramid of white hair, her long black ear-trumpet and her hard sharp little eyes like faded blue pebbles, there would be his mother, square and broad and placid with her hands folded on her lap, there would be Aunt Aggie, with her pout- ing, fat little face, her cheeks quivering a little as she moved her head, her eyes searching about the room, nervously, un- easily, and there would be Aunt Betty, neat and tiny, with her little trembling smile and her quiet air of having something very important to do of which no one else in the family had the ghost of an idea ! Oh ! he knew them all so well that they appeared to him, now, to be part of himself and to exist only as his ideas of the world and life and his own des- tiny. They could not now do anything that would ever sur- prise or disconcert him, he knew their ideas, their schemes, their partialities, their disgusts, and he would not — so he thought now with the fire of life burning so brightly with- in him — have them changed, no, not in any tiniest atom of an alteration. He knew that they would sit there, all of them, and talk quietly about nothing, and then when the gold clock was ap- proaching half-past nine they would slip away, — save only grandfather and Aunt Sarah — and would slip up to their rooms and then they would slip down again with their parcels in their hands and at half-past nine the Ceremony would take place. So it had been for years and years and so it would, continue to be until Grandfather's death, and, after that, Henry's father would take his place, and then, one day, per- haps, it would be the turn of Henry himself. He paused for a moment and looked at the room — Kath- erine was not there. She was always until the very last THE CEKEMOKY 25 - ' moment, doing something to Grandfather's present, tying it up in some especial ribbon, writing something on the paper wrapping, making it, in some way, more perfect. He knew that, as he came in, his mother would look up and smile and say "Well, Henry/' and then would resume her placidity, that Uncle Tim would sit down beside Aunt Betty and begin, very gently, to chaff her, which would please her immensely, and that Aunt Sarah would cry "What did you say, Tim- othy ?" and that then he would shout down her ear-trumpet, with a good-humoured smile peeping down from his beard as though he were thinking "One must humour the old lady you know." All these things occurred. Henry himself sat in a low chair by the fire and looked at his father, who was walking up and down the other end of the room, his hands deep in his pockets, his head back. Then he looked at his two aunts and wondered, as he had wondered so many times before, that they were not the sisters of his mother instead of his father. They were so small and fragile to be the sisters of such large- limbed, rough-and-tumble men as his father and Uncle Tim- othy. They would have, so naturally, taken their position in the world as the sisters of his mother. Aunt Aggie, who thought that no one was paying her very much attention, said : "I can't think why Katherine wouldn't let me get that silk for her at Liberty's this afternoon. I could have gone up Kegent Street so easily — it wouldn't have been very much trouble — not very much, but Katherine always must do every- thing for herself." Mrs. Trenchard said: "It was very kind of you, Aggie dear, to think of it — I'm sure it was very kind," and Aunt Betty said: "Katherine would appreciate your thinking of her." "I wonder, with the fog, that any of you went out at all," said Uncle Tim, "I'm sure I was as nearly killed as nothing just coming back from the Strand." 26 THE GREEK MIRROR Aunt Aggie moved her Lands on her lap, looked at them, suspiciously, to see whether they meant what they said, and then sighed — and, to Henry, this all seemed to-night won- derful, magical, possessed of some thrilling, passionate qual- ity; his heart was heating with furious, leaping bounds, his eyes were misty with sentimental happiness. He thought that this was life that he was realising now for the first time. ... It was not — it was two glasses of Port. He looked at his grandfather and thought of the wonderful old man that he was. His grandfather was very small and very thin and so delicate was the colour of his white hair, his face, and his hands that the light seemed to shine through him, as though he had been made of glass. He was a silent old man and everything about him was of a fine precious qual- ity— his black shoes with the silver buckles, the gold signet ring on his finger, the black cord with the gold eye-glasses that lay across his shirt-front ; when he spoke it was with a thin, silvery voice like a bell. He did not seem, as he sat there, to be thinking about any of them or to be caring for anything that they might do. His thoughts, perhaps, were shining and silver and pre- cious like the rest of him, but no one knew because he said so little. Aunt Betty, with a glance at the clock, rose and slipped from the room. The moment had arrived. . . . Very soon, and, indeed, just as the clock, as though it were summoning them all back, struck the half -hour, there they all were again. They stood, in a group by the door and each one had, in his or her hand, his or her present. Grandfather, as silent as an ivory figure, sat in his chair, with Aunt Sarah in her chair beside him, and in front of him was a table, cleared of anything that was upon it, its mahogany shining in the fire-light. All the Trenchard soldiers and the Trench- THE CEEEMONY 27 ard Bishop looked down, with solemn approval, upon the scene. "Come on, Henry, my boy, time to begin/' said his father. Henry, because he was the youngest, stepped forward, his present in his hand. His parcel was very ill-tied and the paper was creased and badly folded. He was greatly ashamed as he laid it upon the table. Blushing, he made his little speech, his lips together, speaking like an awkward schoolboy. "We're all very glad, Grandfather, that we're all — most of us — here to — to congratulate you on your birthday. We hope that you're enjoying your birthday and that — that there'll be lots more for you to enjoy." "Bravo, Henry," came from the back of the room. Henry stepped back still blushing. Then Grandfather Trenchard, with trembling hands, slowly undid the parcel and revealed a purple leather blotting-book with silver edges. "Thank you, my boy — very good of you. Thank you." Then came Katherine. Katherine was neither very tall nor very short, neither fat nor thin. She had some of the grave placidity of her mother and, in her eyes and mouth, some of the humour of her father. She moved quietly and easily, very self-possessed; she bore herself as though she had many more important things to think about than any- thing that concerned herself. Her hair and her eyes were dark brown, and now as she went with her present, her smile was as quiet and unself-conscious as everything else about her. "Dear Grandfather," she said, "I wish you many, many happy returns — " and then she stepped back. Her present was an old gold snuff-box. "Thank you, my dear," he said. "Very charming. Thank you, my dear." Then came Aunt Aggie, her eyes nervous and a little re- sentful as though she had been treated rather hardly but was making the best of difficult circumstances. "I'm afraid you won't like this, Father," she said. "I felt that you wouldn't 28 THE GEEEN MIREOE when I got it. But I did my best. It's a silly thing to give you, I'm afraid." *~ was desperately bored with him. She had always mothered him, but thought now that an English girl would mother him better. She sent him home. He was very young for his thirty vears, but then from the age of anyone who has lived i/ ,/ ~ t/ in Russia for long, yon may take away, always, twenty years, lie was resolved now to bo the most English of all Eng- THE FOREST 71 lisli — to be strong, hard-headed, a little cynical, unsentimen- tal. . . . He had, of course, fallen in love with the first Eng- lish girl whom ho met. Meanwhile ho did not entirely assist his cynical hardheadcdness hy writing long, introspective let- ters to his Russian friend. However, to support his resolute independence, he had always in front of him on his writing- tahle a photograph of his mother. "It shall never be like that again", he would say to him- self, looking fixedly at the rather faded picture of a lady of iron-grey hair and a strong bosom clad in shining black silk. "Won't it, my son?" said his mother, looking back at him with a steely twinkle somewhere in her eye. "Won't it?" Meanwhile there was no place in London where, at three in the morning, he might drink with his friends and dis- cover that all the world loved him. He was very lonely in London, and wanted Katherine more desperately with every tick of the Ormolu clock on the marble mantelpiece; but he would not go to see her. . . . One glance at his mother's photograph was enough to settle that. No, lie would not. . . . Then he met her. Tpon a lonely November afternoon he walked along the Embankment, past Lambeth Bridge, into (lie melancholy, deserted silences of Pimlico. lie turned back, out of the little PTGV streets on to the river again, and D ty stood, for a while, looking back over the broad still sheet of the river, almost white in colour but streaked with black iines of shadow that trembled and wavered as though they were rods about to whip the water into storm. The sky was grey, and all the buildings clustered against it were grey, but slowly, as though some unseen baud were tearing the sky like tissue paper, a faint red background was stealing into the picture and even a little faint gold that came from God knows where flitted, in and out, upon the face of the river. Heavy black barges lay, like ancient prehistoric beasts, in the slime left now by the retreating tide. One little tug 72 THE GREEN MIEROE pushed desperately up stream as though it would force some energy into this dreaming, dying world — a revolutionary striving to stir the dim silences that watched, from either bank, into protest. The air was sharply cold and there was a smell of smoke somewhere — also of tar and cabhage and mud. . . . The red light pushed and pushed its way upwards. The silence emphasised, with rather a pleasing melancholy, Philip's loneliness. It seemed, down here, as though Lon- don were a dead city and he, only, alive in it. Katherine, too, was alive somewhere. . . . He looked and, as in one's dreams absurdity tumbles upon the heels of absurdity, he saw her walking alone, coming, as yet without any recogni- tion in her eyes, towards him. The world was dead and he was dead and Katherine — let it stay so then. . . . No, the world was alive. She had rec- ognised him; she had smiled — the air was suddenly warm and pulsating with stir and sound. As she came up to him he could think of nothing but the strange difference that his fortnight's absorption in her had made for him. His being with her now was as though he had arrived at some long- desired Mecca after a desperate journey of dust and strain and peril. As he greeted her he felt "A fortnight ago we had only just met, but now we have known each other for years and years and years — but perhaps she does not know that yet." But he knew, as she gave him her hand, that she felt a little awkwardness simply because she was so glad to see him — and she had never been awkward with him before. "You've been hiding from us," she said. Her cheeks were flaming because she had walked fast, because the air was frosty — because she was glad to see him. Her coat and muff were a little old-fashioned and not verv becoming to her— «y o all the more did he praise the beautiful kindliness of her eyes. "I'm in love with you," he wanted to say to her. "Do you care that I am ?" . . . He turned at her side and they THE FOKEST faced together the reddening sky. The whole city lay in absolute silence about them as though they were caught to- gether into a ball of grey evening cloud. "I haven't hidden," he said, smiling, "I came and called, but you were not there." "I heard," she answered, "Aunt Aggie said you were very agreeable and amusing — I hope you're happy in your rooms.7 "They're all right." "We miss you. Father's always beginning to tell you something and then finding that you're gone. Henry- "Your Mother?" "Ah, you were quite wrong about Mother. You thought that she disliked you. You care much too much, by the way, whether people like you or no. But Mother's hard, perhaps, to get to know. You shocked and disturbed her a little, but she didn't dislike you." Although he had asserted so definitely that Mrs. Trenchard hated him, he had reassured himself, in his own heart, that she rather liked him — now when he saw in spite of Kather- ine's words that she really had disliked him, he felt a little shock of dismay. "You may say what you like," he said, "I know — " "No, you don't understand. Mother is so absorbed by all of us. There are a great many of us, you know — that it takes a long time for her to realise anyone from outside. You were so much from outside. She was just beginning to realise you when you went away. We are all so much to her. In a family as big as ours there are always so many things, o . ." "Of course," he said, "I know. As to myself, it's natural enough. At present I miss Moscow — but that will be all right soon." She came a little closer to him, and her eyes were so kindly that he looked down upon the ground lest his own eyes should betray him. 74 THE GREEN MIRROR "Look here — come to us whenever you like. Why, all this time, have yon kept away? Wasn't it what you were always telling us about your friends in Moscow that their houses were open to everyone always $ You must miss that. Don't be lonely whatever you do. There are ever so many of us, and some of us are sure to be in." "I will," he said, stammering, "I will." "Henry's always asking questions about Russia now. You've had a great effect upon him, and he wants you to tell him ever so much more. Then there's Millie. She; hasn't seen yon at all yet. You'll like her so much. There's Vin- cent coming back from Eton. Don't be lonely or homesick. I know how miserable it is." They were in the Square by the Church outside her house; above the grey solid building the sky had been torn into streaming clouds of red and gold. lie took her hand and held it, and suddenly as she felt his pressure the colour Hooded her face; she strove to beat it down— she could not. She tried to draw her hand away — but her own body, as though it knew better than she;, defied her. She tried to speak -no words would come. She tried to tell him with her eyes that she was indiffer- ent, but her glance at him showed such triumph in his gaze that, she began to tremble. Then he released her hand. She said nothing — only with quick steps hurried into the house. He stood there; until she had disappeared, then he turned round towards his rooms. ]Fe strode down Victoria Street in such a flame of exul- tation as can flare this World into splendour only once or twice in a lifetime. It was the hour when the lights come out, and it seemed to him that he himself flung fire here, there, for all the world to catch, now high into a lamp-post, now low beneath some basement window, now like a cracker upon some distant trees, now, high, high into the very eve- ning blue itself. The pavement, the broad street, the high, THE FOREST 75 mysterious buildings caught and passed the flame from our to another. An ancient newspaper man, ragged in a faded tail coat, was shouting "Finals! Finals! All the Finals!" but to Philip's ear he was saying- "She cares for you! she cares for you ! Praise God! What a world it is." He stumbled up the dark stairs of his house past the door from whose crevices there stole always the scent of patchouli, past the door, higher up, whence came, creeping up his stairs the suggestion of beef and cabbage, into his own dark lodg- ing. His sitting-room had its windows still open and its blinds still up. The lamp in the street below flung its squares of white light upon his walls ; papers on his table were blow- ing in the evening breeze, and the noise of the town climbed up, looked in through the open windows, fell away again, climbed up again in an eternal indifferent urgency. He was aware that a man stood by the window, a wavering shadow was spread against the lighted wall. Philip stopped in the doorway. "Hullo!" ho said, "who's there?" A figure came forward. Philip, to whom all the world was, to-night, a fantasy, stared, for a moment, at the large bearded form without recognising it — wild and unreal as it seemed in the dim room. The man chuckled. "Well, young man. I've corne to call, I got here two minutes before you." It was Uncle Tim, Mrs. Trenchard's brother, Timothy Faunder, Esq. "I beg your pardon," said Philip, "the room was dark and — and — as a matter of fact I was thinking of something rather hard as I came in. Wait a minute. You shall have some light, tea and a cigarette in a moment." "No, thanks." Uncle Tim went back to the window again. "No tea — no cigarette. I hate the first. The second's poi- eonous. I've got a pipe here — and don't light up — the room's 76 THE GREEN MIRROR rather pleasant like this. I expect it's hideous when one can see it." Philip was astonished. He had liked Tim Faunder, but had decided that Tim Faunder was indifferent to him — quite indifferent. For what had he come here ? Sent by the fam- ily ? ... Yes, he liked Uncle Tim, but he did not want him or anyone else in the world there just then. He desired to sit by the open window, alone, to think about Katherine, to worship Katherine! They both sat down; Faunder on the window-seat, Philip near by. The noise of the town was distant enough to make a pleasant rumbling accompaniment to their voices. The little dark public-house opposite with its beery eye, a dim hanging lamp in the doorway, watched them. "Well, how are you ?" said Faunder, "lonely ?" "It was at first," said Philip, who found it immensely difficult to tie his thoughts to his visitor. "And I hadn't been lonely for so long — not since my first days in Moscow." "They were lonely then ?" "Oh, horribly. My first two months there were the worst hours in all my life. I wanted to learn Russian, so I kept away from English people — and Russian's difficult to pick up at first." Faunder made one of the rumbling noises in his throat that always testified to his interest. "I like what you said — over there, at my sister's," he waved his hand, "about Russia — and about everything. I listened, although perhaps you didn't think it. I hope you're going to stick to it, young man." "Stick to what?" "Your ideas about things — everything being for the best. There's a great time coming — and the Trenchards are damned fools." "But I never—" "Oh, yes, you did. You implied it. Nobody minded, of course, because the Trenchards know so well that they're THE FOREST 77 not. They don't bother what people think, bless them. Be- sides, you don't understand them in the least — nor won't ever, I expect." "But," said Philip, "I really never thought for a moment." "Don't be so afraid of hurting people's feelings. I liked your confidence. I liked your optimism. I just came this afternoon to see whether a fortnight alone had damped it a little." Philip hesitated. It would be very pleasant to say that no amount of personal trouble could alter his point of view ; it would be very pleasant to say that the drearier his personal life was the surer he was of his Creed. He hesitated — then spoke the truth. "As a matter of fact, I'm afraid it was dimmed for a bit. Russia seemed so far away and so did England, and I was hanging in mid-air, between. But now — everything's all right again." "Why now ? . . . Because I've paid you a call ?" Uncle Timothy laughed. Philip looked down at the little public-house. "I'm very glad you have. But this afternoon — it's been the kind of day I've expected London to give me, it seemed to settle me suddenly with a jerk, as though it were pushing me into my place and saying, 'There! now I've found a seat for you'." He was talking, he knew, at random, but he was very con- scious of Uncle Timothy, the more conscious, perhaps, be- cause he could not see his face. Then he bent forward in his chair. "It was very jolly of you," he said, "to come and see me — but tell me, frankly, why you did. We scarcely spoke to one another whilst I was at your sister's house." "I listened to you, though. Years ago I must have been rather like you. How old are you ?" "Thirty." "Well, when I was thirty I was an idealist. I was im- patient of my family although I loved them. I thought the 78 THE GREEN MIRROR world was going to do great things in a year or two. I be- lieved most devoutly in the Millennium. I grew older — I was hurt badly. I believed no longer, or thought I didn't, I determined that the only thing in life was to hold oneself absolutely aloof. I have done that ever since. ... I had forgotten all these years that I had ever been like you. And then when I heard once again the same things, the same be- liefs . . ." He broke off, lit his pipe, puffed furiously at it and watched the white clouds sail into the night air. "Whatever I have felt," said Philip, slowly, "however I have changed, to-night I know that I am right. To-night I know that all I believed in my most confident hour is true." The older man bent forward and put his hand on Philip's arm. "Stick to that. Remember at least that you said it to me. If before I died. . . . There have been times. . . . After the Boer War here in England it seemed that things were moving. There was new life, new blood, new curiosity. But then I don't know — it takes so long to wake people up. You woke me up a little with your talk. You woke them all up — a little. And if people like my sister and my brother-in- law — whom I love, mind you — wake up, why then it will be painful for them but glorious for everyone else." Philip was more alarmed than ever. He had not, at all, wished to wake the Trenchards up — he had only wanted them to like him. He was a little irritated and a little bored with Uncle Timothy. If only Mr. and Mrs. Trenchard allowed him to love Katherine, he did not care if they never woke up in all their lives. He felt too that he did not really fill the picture of the young ardent enthusiast. He was bound, he knew, to disappoint Uncle Timothy. He would have liked to have taken him by the hand and said to him : "Now if only you will help me to marry Katherine I will be as optimistic as you like for ever and ever." But Uncle Tim was cleverer than Philip supposed. "You're thinking — how tiresome ! Here's this old man fore- THE FOKEST 79 ing me into a stained-glass window. Don't think that. I know you're an ordinary nice young fellow just like any- one else. It's your age that's pleasant. I've lived very much alone all these years at a little house I've got down in Glebe- shire. You must come and see it. You're sure to stay with my sister there ; she's only five minutes away. But I've been so much alone there that I've got into the hahit of talking to myself." Philip at once loved Uncle Tim. "I'm delighted that you came. If you'll let me be a friend of yours I shall be most awfully proud. It was only that I didn't want you to expect too much of me. One gets into the way in Russia of saying that things are going to be splendid because they're so bad — and really there they do want things to be better. And often I do think that there's going to be, one day, a new world. And many people now think about it and hope for it — perhaps they always did." Uncle Timothy got up. "That's all right, my son. We'll be friends. Come and see me. London's a bit of a forest- one can't make out always quite what's going on. You'll get to know all of us and like us, I hope. Come and see me. Yes ?" "Of course I will." "I've got a dirty little room in Westminster, 14 Barton Street. I go down to Glebeshire for Christmas, thank God. Good-night." He clumped away down the stairs. He had stayed a very short time, and Philip felt vaguely that, in some way or an- other, Uncle Tim had been disappointed in him. For what had he come ? What had he wanted ? Had the family sent him ? Was the family watching him ? That sense that Philip had had during the early days in London suddenly returned. He felt, in the dark room, in the dark street, that the Trenchards were watching him. From the old man down to Henry they were watching him, waiting to see what he would do. 80 THE GREEN MIEEOB Did Uncle Tim think that he loved Katherine? Had he corne to discover that ? Although it was early, the room was very cold and very dark. Philip knew that for an instant he was so afraid that he dared not look behind him. "London's a forest. . . ." And Katherine ! At the thought of her he rose, defied all the Trenchards in the world, lit his lamp and pulled down the blinds. The smell of Uncle Tim's tobacco was very strong in the room. CHAPTEE V THE FINEST THING WHEN a stranger surveys the life of a family it is very certain that the really determining factor in the de- velopment of that group of persons will escape his notice. For instance, in surveying the Trenchards, Philip had disre- garded Aunt Aggie. As this is a record of the history of a family and not only of individuals, Aunt Aggie must be seriously considered; it was the first ominous mistake that Philip made that he did not seriously consider her. Agnes Trenchard, when quite a young girl, had been pretty in a soft and rounded manner. Two offers of marriage had been made to her, but she had refused these because she had a great sense of her destiny. From her first thinking moment she had considered herself very seriously. She had very high ideals ; the finest thing in this world was a life of utter unselfishness, a life of noble devotion and martyred self-interest. She looked about her and could see no signs of such lives; all the more then was it clear that she was set apart to give the world such an ex- ample. Unfortunately, allied to this appreciation of a fine self-sacrificing character was a nature self-indulgent, indo- lent and suspicious. Could she be unselfish without trouble or loss then how unselfish she would be ! She liked the idea of it immenselv. . . . V For some years she was pretty, sang a little and obviously 'thought more' than either of her sisters. People listened then to her creed and believed in her intentions. She talked often of unselfishness, was always ready to do anything for 81 82 THE GREEN MIRROR anybody, and was always prevented or forestalled by less al- truistic people. When, after her two offers of marriage, she stepped very quickly into the shapes and colours of an old maid, went to live with her sister-in-law and brother, and formed 'habits', people listened to her less readily. She her- self however, quite unaware that at thirty-five, life for a woman is, sexually, either over or only just commencing, hoped to continue the illusions of her girlhood. The nobility of unselfishness appealed to her more than ever, but she found that the people around her were always standing in her way. She became, therefore, quite naturally, rather bitter. Her round figue expressed, in defiance of its rotundity, peevish- ness. She had to account for her failures in self-sacrificing al- truism, and found it not in her own love of ease and dislike of effort, but, completely, in other people's selfishness. Had she been permitted she would have been the finest Trenchard alive, and how fine that was only a Trenchard could know ! But the world was in a conspiracy against her — the world, and especially her sister Elizabeth, whom she despised and bullied, but, somewhere in her strange suspicious crust of a heart, loved. That was, perhaps, the strangest thing about her — that, in spite of her ill-humour, discontents and irri- tations, she really loved the family, and would like to have told it so were she not continually prevented by its extraor- dinary habit of being irritating just when she felt most af- fectionate! She really did love them, and she would go down sometimes in the morning with every intention of saying so, but in five minutes they had destroyed that picture of her- self which, during her absence from them, she had painted — for that, of course, she could not forgive them. In the mansion of the human soul there are many cham- bers ; Aunt Aggie's contradictions were numberless ; but, on broad lines it may be said that her assurance of the injustice of her own fate was balanced only by her conviction of the good luck of everyone else. She hoped, perpetually, that THE FINEST THING 83 they would all recognise this — namely, that their Life had treated them with the most wonderful good fortune. Her brother George Trenchard, for instance, with his careless hahits, his indifference to the facts of life, his obvious sel- fishness. What disasters he would, had he not been incredi- bly favoured, most surely have encountered! Aunt Aggie was afraid that he did not sufficiently realise this, and so, in order that he might offer up thanks to God, she reminded him, as often as was possible, of his failings. Thus, too, with the others. Even Katherine, for whom she cared deeply, be- trayed, at times, a haughty and uplifted spirit, and fre- quently forestalled her aunt's intended unselfishness, thus, in a way, rebuking her aunt, a thing that a niece should never do. With this consciousness of her relations' failings went an insatiable curiosity. Aunt Aggie, because she was the finest character in the family, should be rewarded by the trust and confidence of the family; she must, at any rate, maintain the illusion that she received it. Did they keep her quiet with little facts and stories that were of no importance, she must make them important in order to support her dig- nity. She made them very important indeed. . . . A great factor was her religion. She was, like her sister, a most sincere and devout member of the Church of England. She believed in God as revealed to her by relations and clergymen in the day of her baptism; time and a changing world had done nothing to shake her confidence. But, unlike her sisters, she believed that this God existed chiefly as a friend and supporter of Miss Agnes Trenchard. He had other duties and purposes, of course, but did not hide from her His especial interest in herself. The knowledge of this gave her great confidence. She was now fifty years of age, and believed that she was still twenty-five; that is not to say that she dressed as a young woman or encouraged, any longer, the possibility of romantic affairs. It was simply that the interest and attraction that she offered to the world as a fine and noble character were the same as they had ever 84 THE GEEEN MIEKOE been — and if the world did not recognize this that was be- cause fine and noble characters were few and difficult to dis- cover. One knew this because the Trenchard family offered so seldom an example of one, and the Trenchards were, of course, the finest people in England. She had great power with her relations because she knew, so intimately, their weaknesses. People, on the whole, may be said to triumph over those who believe in them and submit to those who don't. The Trenchards, because life was full and time was short, submitted to Aunt Aggie and granted anything in order that they might not be made uncomfort- able. They could not, however, allow her to abuse them, one to another, and would submit to much personal criticism before they permitted treachery. Their mutual affection was a very real factor in their lives. Aunt Aggie herself had her share in it. She possessed, nevertheless, a genius for creating discomfort or for promoting an already unsteady at- mosphere. She was at her best when the family was at its worst, because then she could perceive, quite clearly, her own fine nobility. Philip Mark had made a grave mistake when he disre- garded her. She had disliked Philip from the first. She had disap- proved of the way that he had burst in upon the family just when she had been at her best in the presentation to her father. He had not known that she had been at her best, but then that was his fault. She had been ready to forgive this, however, if, in the days that followed, he had shown that he appreciated her. He had not shown this, at all — he had, in fact, quite obviously preferred her sister Elizabeth. He had not listened to "her with close attention when she had talked to him about the nobility of unselfishness, and he had dis- played both irritation and immorality in his views of life. She had been shocked by the abruptness with which he had rebuked Mr. Seymour, and she thought his influence OP THE FINEST THING 85 Henry was, already, as bad as it could be. It was of course only too characteristic of George that he should encourage the young man. She could see what her father and Aunt Sarah thought of him, and she could only say that she en- tirely shared their opinion. Philip's visit had upset her, and Millie's return from Paris upset her still more. She had never cared greatly about Millie, who had never showed her any deference or attention, but Millie had until now always been a Trenchard. She had come back from Paris only half a Trenchard. Aunt Aggie was grievously afraid that troublesome times were in store for them all. It was just at this point that her attention was directed towards Katherine. She always considered that Katherine knew her better than any other member of the family did, which simply meant that Katherine considered her feelings. Lately, however, Katherine had not considered her feelings. She had, on at least two occasions, been deliberately uncivil ! Once Aunt Aggie had suffered from neuralgia, and Katherine had promised to come and read her to sleep and had forgot- ten to do so. Next morning, her neuralgia being better, Aunt Aggie said — "I can't, dear Katherine, imagine myself, under similar conditions, acting as you have done. ... I had a sleepless night. . . . But of course you had more important duties" — and Katherine had scarcely apologised. On the sec- ond occasion Aunt Aggie at breakfast, (she was always bitter at breakfast, mildly unhappy over her porridge and violently sarcastic by marmalade time) had remarked with regret that Millie, who was late, had "picked up these sad habits abroad. She had never known anvone the finer, whether in character i/ or manners, for living abroad ;" here was a little dust flung at the inoffensive person of Philip, now soundly asleep in Jermyn Street. At once Katherine was "in a flurry." "What right had Aunt Aggie to say so? How could she tell ? It might be better if one went abroad more, lost some 86 THE GREEK MIRROR of one's prejudices . . ." quite a little scene! Very unlike Katherine ! Aunt Aggie did not forget. Like some scientist or mathe- matician, happily let loose into some new theory or prob- lem, so now did she consider Katherine. Katherine was dif- ferent, Katherine was restless and out of temper. She had been so ever since Philip Mark's visit. . . . With her sew- ing or her book Aunt Aggie sat in a corner by the drawing- room fire and watched and waited. Upon that afternoon that had seen Katherine's meeting with Philip by the river Aunt Aggie had been compelled to have tea alone. That had been annoying, because it looked as though the gay world was inviting everyone except Aunt Aggie to share in its excitements and pleasures. At last there arrived Mrs. Trenchard and Millie, and finally Kath- erine. Aunt Aggie had sat in her warm corner, pursuing with her needle the green tail of an unnatural parrot which she was working into a slowly-developing cushion cover and had considered her grievances. It had been a horrible day, cold and gloomy. Aunt Aggie had a chilblain that, like the Waits, always appeared about Christmas and, unlike them, stayed on well into the spring. It had made its appearance, for the first time this season, during the past night. Millie talked a great deal about very little, and Mrs. Trenchard received her remarks with the nonchalant indifference of a croupier raking in the money at Monte Carlo. Katherine sat staring into the fire and saying nothing. Aunt Aggie, watching her, felt quite suddenly as though the firelight had leapt from some crashing coal into a flaring splendour, that something strange and unusual was with them in the room. She was not at all, like her sister Elizabeth, given to romantic and sentimental impressions. She seldom read novels, and cared nothing for the theatre. What she felt now was really unpleasant and uncomfortable, as though she had soap in her eyes or dropped her collection under the seat during the Litany. The room positively glowed, the dim THE FINEST THING 87 shadows were richly coloured, and in Aunt Aggie's heart was alarm and agitation. She stared about her; she looked about the room and pierced the shadows ; she sewed a wrong stitch into the par- rots7 tail, and then decided that it was Katherine's eyes. . . . She looked at the girl — she looked again and again — saw her bending forward a little, her hands pressed together on her lap, her breast rising and falling with the softest suspicion of some agitation, and, in her eyes, such a light as could come from no fire, no flame from without, but only from the very soul itself. Katherine's good-tempered, humorous eyes, so charged with common-sense, affectionate but always mild, un- agitated, calm, like her mother's — now what was one to say ? Aunt Aggie said nothing. Her own heart felt for an in- stant some response. She would have liked to have taken the girl into her arms and kissed her and petted her. In a mo- ment the impulse passed. What was the matter with Kath- erine? Who was the matter with Katherine? It was al- most improper that anyone should look like that in a drawing- room that had witnessed so much good manners. Moreover it was selfish, this terrible absorption. If Katherine began to think of herself, whatever would happen to them all ! And there were Millie and her mother, poor things, chattering blindly together. Aunt Aggie felt that the business of watch- ing over this helpless family did indeed devolve upon her. From that moment Katherine and the things that were pos- sibly happening to Katherine never left her thoughts. She was happier than she had been for many months. But Katherine, in the days that followed, gave her curi- osity no satisfaction. Aunt Aggie dated, in future years, all the agitation that was so shortly to sweep down upon the Trenchard waters from that afternoon when 'Kather- ine's eyes had seemed so strange', but her insistence on that date did not at all mean that it was then that Katherine in- vited her aunt's confidence, Aunt Aggie was compelled to drive on her mysterious way alone. She was now assured 88 THE GREEN MIRROR that 'something was the matter', but the time had not yet arrived when all the family was concerned in it. In any case, to begin with, what was her sister-in-law Harriet Trenchard thinking ? No one ever knew what Harriet Trenchard thought; and foolish and hasty observers said that that was because Harriet Trenchard never thought at all. Aggie Trenchard was neither foolish nor hasty; she was afraid of Harriet because, after all these years, she knew nothing about her. She had never penetrated that indifferent stolidity. Harriet had never spoken to her in- timately about anything, nor had Harriet once displayed any emotions, whether of surprise or anger, happiness or grief, but Aggie was penetrating enough to fear that brood- ing quiet. At least Aggie knew her sister-in-law well enough to realise that her children were an ever-present, ever-passionate element in her life. On certain occasions, concerning Millie, Katherine, Henry or Vincent, Aggie had seen that silence, for a moment, quiver as a still lake trembles with a sudden shake or roll when the storm is raging across the hills — espe- cially was Katherine linked to her mother's most intimate hold upon life, even though the words that they exchanged were of the most commonplace; Aunt Aggie knew that, and strangely, obscurely, she was moved, at times, to sudden im- pulses of bitter jealousy. Why was it that no one cared for her as Katherine cared for her mother? What was there in Harriet to care for? . . . and yet — nevertheless, Aggie Trenchard loved her sister-in-law. With regard to this present business Aggie knew, with sufficient assurance, that Harriet disliked Philip Mark, had disliked him from the first. Had Harriet noticed this change in her daughter, and had she drawn her conclusions? What would Harriet say if . . . ? Aunt Aggie added stitches to the green par- rot's tail with every comfortable assurance that 'in a time or two', there would be plenty of trouble. Ultimately, through it all, it was her jealousy that moved THE FINEST THING 8P her and her jealousy that provoked the first outburst . . . instantly, without warning, new impulses, new relationships, new motives were working amongst them all, and their world was changed. Upon an afternoon, Aunt Aggie hearing that Henry wished to change a novel at Mu die's Library (that very novel that he had been reading on the day of Philip's ar- rival) offered to take it for him. This was at luncheon, and she felt, because she liked her food and barley-water, a sud- den impulse towards the Ideal Unselfishness. She made her offer, and then reflected that it would be very trouble- some to go so far as Oxford Street; she therefore allowed Katherine to accept the mission, retaining at the same time her own nobility. She became quite angry: "Of course," she said, "you consider me too old to do anything — to sit in a corner and sew is all I'm good for — well, well- -you'll be old yourself one day, Katherine, my dear. I should have liked to have helped Henry. . . . However . . ." She was conscious, during the afternoon, of some injus- tice; she had been treated badly. At dinner that night Rocket forgot the footstool that was essential to her com- fort ; she was compelled at last to ask him for it. He had never forgotten it before ; they all thought her an old woman who didn't matter ; no one troubled now about her — well, they should see. . . . Great Aunt Sarah was, as often happened to her, rheu- matic but Spartan in bed. The ladies, when they left the dining-room and closed around the drawing-room fire, were Mrs. Trenchard, Aunt Aggie, Aunt Betty, Katherine and Millie. Happy and comfortable enough they looked, with the shadowed dusky room behind them and the blaze in front of them. In the world outside it was a night of in- tense frost: here they were reflected in the Mirror, Mrs. Trenchard's large gold locket (Henry as a baby inside it), Aggie's plump neck and black silk dress, Aunt Betty's dart- ing, sparkling eyes, Millie's lovely shoulders, Katherine's 90 THE GREEN MIRROR rather dumpy ones — there they all were, right inside the Mirror, with a reflected fire to make them cosy and the walls ever so thick and old. The freezing night could not touch them. "Rocket's getting very old and careless/7 said Aggie. Everyone had known that Aunt Aggie was out of temper this evening, and everyone, therefore, was prepared for a tiresome hour or two. Rocket was a great favourite; Mrs. Trenchard, her arms folded across her bosom, her face the picture of placid content, said : "Oh, Aggie, do you think so ? ... I don't." "No, of couse, you don't, Harriet," answered her sister sharply. "He takes care with you. Of course he does. But if you considered your sister sometimes— "My dear Aggie!" Mrs. Trenchard, as she spoke, bent forward and very quietly picked up a bright green silk thread from the carpet. "Oh, I'm not complaining! That's a thing I don't be- lieve in ! After all, if you think Rocket's perfection I've no more to say. I want others to be comfortable — for my- self I care nothing. It is for the rest of the family." o * "We're quite comfortable, Aunt Aggie, thank you," said Millie laughing. "I hope you don't think, Harriet," said Aggie, disregard- ing her niece, "that I'm complaining- -I- Mrs. Trenchard leant towards her, holding out the thread of green silk ! "That must be from your silks, Aggie dear," she said. "It's just the colour of your parrot's tail. I couldn't think what it was, lying there 011 the carpet." It was then that Katherine, who had paid no attention to this little conversation but had followed her own thoughts, said: "Oh ! how careless of me ! I never took Henrv's book. «.' / after all — and I went right up Oxford Street too !" This was unfortunate, because it reminded A\mt Aggie of THE FINEST THING 91 something that she had very nearly forgotten. Of course Katherine had never intended to take the book — she had simply offered to do so because she thought her Aunt old, feeble, and incapable. "Keally, Katherine," said Aunt Aggie, "you might have let me take it after all. I may be useless in most ways and not worth anyone's consideration, but at least I'm still able to walk up Oxford Street in safety!" Her aunt's tones were so bitter that Katherine looked across at her in some dismay. Aunt Betty did not assist the affair by saying: "Why, Aggie dear, who ever supposed you couldn't; I'm sure you can do anything you want to!" "Well, perhaps, next time," Aunt Aggie said sharply. "When I offer some help someone will listen to me. I should not have forgotten the book." "I cant think why I did," said Katherine, "I remembered it just before I started, and then something happened- Aunt Aggie looked about her, and thought that this would be a very good opportunity for discovering the real state of Katherine's mind. "You must take care, Katherine dear," she said, "you don't seem to me to have been quite yourself lately. I've noticed a number of little things. You're tired, I think." Katherine laughed. "Why should I be ? I've had nothing to make me." It was then that Aunt Aggie caught a look of strange, almost furtive anxiety in Harriet's eyes. Following this, for the swiftest moment, Katherine and her mother ex- changed a gleam of affection, of reassurance, of confidence. "Ah !" thought Aunt Aggie, "they're laughing at me. Everyone's laughing at me." "My dear Katherine," she snapped, "I'm sure / don't know what's tired you, but I think you must realise what I mean. You are not your normal self; and, if your old aunt may say so, that's a pity." 92 THE GREEN MIRROR Millie, looking across at her sister, was astonished to see the colour rising in her cheeks. Katherine was annoyed! Katherine minded Aunt Aggie! Katherine, who was never out of temper — never perturbed ! and at Aunt Aggie ! "Really, Aunt Aggie," Katherine said, "it's very tiresome if all the family are going to watch one day and night as though one were something from the Zoo. Tiresome is not nearly strong enough." Her aunt smiled bitterly. "It's only my affection for you," she said. "But of course you don't want that. Why should you ? One day, however, you may remember that someone once cared whether you were tired or not." Aunt Aggie's hands trembled on her lap. Katherine shook her head impatiently. "I'm very grateful for your kindness — but I'd much rather be left alone. I'm not tired, nor odd, nor anything • — so, please, don't tell me that I ana." Aggie rose from her chair, and very slowly with trembling fingers drew her work together. "I think," she said, her voice quivering a little, "that I'll go to bed. Next time you wish to insult me, Katherine, I'd rather you did it when we were alone." A very slow and stately figure, she walked down the draw- ing-room and disappeared. There was a moment's silence. "Oh, dear!" cried Katherine, "I'm so sorry!" She looked round upon them all, and saw quite clearly that they were surprised at her. Again behind Mrs. Trenchard's eyes there hovered that suspicion of anxiety. "What did I do? What did I say? Aunt Aggie's so funny." Then, as still they did not answer, she turned round upon them : "Have I been cross and tiresome lately ? Have you all noticed it ? Tell me." Aunt Betty said, "No, dear, of course not." Millie said, "What does it matter what Aunt Aggie says ?" THE FINEST THING 93 Mrs. Trenchard said, "There's another of Aggie's green threads. Under your chair? Millie dear. I'd better go up and see whether she wants anything." But Katherine rose and, standing for an instant with a little half-smile, half-frown? surveying them, moved then slowly away from them down the room. "No. I'll go, Mother, and apologise. I suppose I was horrid." She left them. She went up through the dark passages slowly, medita- tively. She waited for a moment outside her aunt's door and then knocked, heard then her aunt's voice, "Come in!" — in tones that showed that she had been expecting some ambassador. Katherine stood by the door, then moved forward, put her arms about Aunt Aggie and kissed her. "I'm so sorry. I'm afraid that I hurt you. You know that I didn't mean to." Upon Aunt Aggie's dried cheeks there hovered a tiny cold and glassy tear. She drew back from Katherine's em- brace, then with a strange, almost feverish movement caught Katherine's hand. "It wasn't, my dear, that you hurt me. I expect I'm too sensitive — that has always been my misfortune. But I felt" (another glassy tear now upon the other cheek) "that you and Millie are finding me tiresome now." "Aunt Aggie! Of course not!'' "I wish to be of some use — it is my continual prayer- some use to someone — and you make me feel- -but of course you are young and impatient — that I'd be better perhaps out of the way." Katherine answered her very gravely: "If I've ever made you feel that for a moment, Aunt Aggie, there's noth- ing too bad for me. But how can you say such a thing? Aren't you a little unjust ?" The two tears had disappeared. "I daresay I am, my dear, I daresay I am — or seem so 94 THE GREEN MIRROR to you. Old people often do to young ones. But I'm not unjust, I think, in fancying that you yourself have changed lately. I made you angry when I said that just now, but I felt it my duty—'7 Katherine was silent. Aunt Aggie watched her with bright, inquisitive eyes, from which tears were now very far away. "Well, we won't say any more, dear. My fault is, per- haps, that I am too anxious to do things for others, and so may seem to you young ones interfering. I don't know, I'm sure. It has always been my way. I'm glad indeed when you tell me that nothing is the matter. To my old eyes it seems that ever since Mr. Mark stayed here the house has not been the same. You have not been the same." "Mr. Mark ?" Katherine's voice was sharp, then sud- denly dropped and, after an instant's silence, was soft, "You've got Mr. Mark on the brain, Aunt Aggie." "Well, my dear, I didn't like him. I'm sure he was very bad for Henry. But then I'm old-fashioned, I suppose. Mr. Mark shocked me, I confess. Russia must be a very wild country." Then, for a space, they looked at one another. Katherine said nothing, only, her cheeks flushed, her breath coming sharply, stared into the mirror on the dressing-table. Aunt Aggie faced in this silence something alarming and uneasy; it was as though they were, both of them, listening for some sound, but the house was very still. "I think I'll go to bed, my dear. Kiss me, Katherine. Don't forget that I'm older than you, dear. I know some- thing of the world — yes . . . good-night, my dear." They embraced ; Katherine left the room. Her cheeks were flaming ; her body seemed wrapt in dry, scorching heat. She hurried, her heart beating so loudly that it seemed to her to fill the passage with sound, into her own room. She did not switch on the electric-light, but stood there in the darkness, tha room very cool and half -shadowed ; some THE FINEST THING 95 reflected outside light made a pool of grey twilight upon the floor, and just above this pool Katherine stood, quite mo- tionless, her head raised, her hands tightly clasped together. She knew. That moment in her aunt's room had told her! She was lifted, by one instant of glorious revelation, out of herself, her body, her life, and caught up into her divine heaven, could look down upon that other arid, mordant world with eyes of incredulous happiness. She loved Philip Mark. She had always loved him. She had never loved anyone before. She had thought that life was enough with its duties, its friendships, its little pleasures and little sorrows. She had never lived; she was born now here in the still security of her room. . . . The clocks were striking ten, the light on the carpet quivered, dimly she could see her books, her bed, her furniture. Some voice, very far away, called her name, waited and then called again -called the old Katherine, who was dead now . . . dead and gone . . . buried in Aunt Aggie's room. The new Katherine had powers, demands, values, insistences, of which the old Katherine had never dreamed. Katherine, at this instant, asked herself no questions- whether he loved her, what the family would say, how she herself would face a new world, why it was that, through all these weeks, she had not known that she loved him ? She asked herself nothing. . . . Only waited, motionless, staring in front of her. Then suddenly her heart was so weighed down with happi- ness that she was utterly weary; her knees trembled, her hands wavered as though seeking some support. She turned, fell down on her knees beside the bed, her face sank deep in her hands and so remained, thinking of nothing, conscious of nothing, her spirit bathed in an intensity of overwhelm- ing joy. She recovered, instantly in the days that followed, her natural sweetness ; she was, as all the household, with relief, discovered, the real Katherine again. She did not to her- 96 THE GREEN MIRROR self seem to have any existence at all. The days in this early December were days of frost, red skies, smoking leaves, and hovering silver mists that clouded the chimneys, made the sun a remotely yellow ball, shot sunset and sunrise with all rainbow colours. Beautiful days — she passed through them, with no con- sciousness of herself, her friends, not even of Philip. ~No thought of anything was possible, only that breathless, burn- ing, heart-beat, the thickness of the throat, the strange heat and then sudden cold about her face, the vision of everyone near her as ghosts who moved many, many worlds away. Her daily duties were performed by someone else — some kindly, considerate, sensible person, who saw that she was disturbed and preoccupied. She watched this kind person, and wondered how it was that the people about her did not notice this. At night for many hours she lay there, thinking of nothing, feeling the beating of her heart, wrapped in a glorious ecstasy of content, then suddenly soothed as though by some anaesthetic she would sleep, dumbly, dreamlessly, heavily. For a week this continued — then Philip came to dinner, scarcely a dinner-party, although it had solemnity. The only invited guests were Philip, Rachel Seddon, her fat uncle, Lord John Beaminster, and an ancient Trenchard cousin. Lord John was fat, shining, and happy. Having survived with much complacency the death of his mother, the Duchess of Wrexe, and the end of the Beaminster grandeur, he led a happy bachelor existence in a little house behind Shepherds Market. He was the perfect symbol of good temper, good food, and a good conscience. Deeply attached to his niece, Rachel, he had, otherwise, many friends, many interests, many happinesses, all of a small bird-like amiable character. He bubbled with relief because he was not compelled, any longer, to sustain the Beaminster character. He had beauti- ful white hair, rosy cheeks, and perfect clothes. He often dined at the Trenchard's house with Rachel — he called him- THE FINEST THING 97 self 'Roddy's Apology.' The Trenchards liked him be- cause he thought very highly of the Trenchards. He sat beside Katherine at dinner and chattered to her. Philip sat on her side of the table, and she could not see him, but when he had entered the drawing-room earlier in the evening the sudden sight of him had torn aside, as though with a fierce, almost revengeful gesture, all the mists, the unrealities, the glories that had, during the last weeks, sur- rounded her. She saw him and instantly, as though with a fall into icy water, was plunged into her old world again. He looked at her, she thought, as he would look at a stranger. He did not care for her — he had not even thought about her. Why had she been so confident during all these strange days ? Her one longing now was to avoid him. With a great effort she drove her common-sense to her service, talked to him for a moment or two with her customary quiet, half-humorous placidity, and went into dinner. She heard his voice now and then. He was getting on well with Rachel. They would become great friends. Katherine was glad. Dinner was interminable; Lord John babbled and babbled and babbled. Dinner was over. The ladies went into the drawing-room. "I like your friend, Katie," said Rachel. "He's inter- esting." "I'm glad you do," said Katherine. The men joined them. Philip was conveyed by Mrs. Trenchard to the ancient Trenchard cousin, who had a bony face and an eager, unsatisfied eye. Philip devoted himself to these. Katherine sat and talked to anyone. She was so miserable that she felt that she had never known before what to be miserable was. Then, when she was wondering whether the evening would ever end, she looked up, across the room. Philip, from his corner, also looked up. Their eyes met and, at that moment, the fire, hitherto decorously confined behind its decent bounds, ran golden, brilliant about the room, up to the ceiling, crackling, flaming. The people in 98 THE GREEN MIEKOR the room faded, disappeared; there was no furniture there, the bookcases, the chairs, the tables were gone, the mirror, blazing with light, burning with some strange heat, shone down upon chaos. Only, through it all, Katherine and Philip were standing, their eyes shining, for all to see, and Heaven, let loose upon a dead, dusty world, poured reck- lessly its glories upon them. "I was saying," said Lord John, "that it's these young fellows who think they can shoot and can't who are doin' all the harm." Slowly, very slowly Katherine's soul retreated within its fortresses again. Slowly the fires faded, Heaven was with- drawn. For a moment she closed her eyes, then, once more, she regarded Lord John. aOh, God! I'm so happy!" some- thing within her was saying, "I shall be absurd and im- possible in a moment if I can't do something with my happi- ness !" She was saved by the ancient cousin's deciding that it was late. She always ended an evening party by declaring that it was later than she could ever have supposed. She was followed by Eachel, Lord John and Philip. When Philip and Xatherine said good-bye their hands scarcely touched, but they were burning. "I will come to-morrow afternoon," he whispered. "Yes," she whispered back to him. Through the history of that old Westminster house there ran the thread of many of such moments, now it could not be surprised nor even so greatly stirred, whispering through its passages and corridors. "Here it is again. . 0 „ Pleasant enough for the time. I wish them luck, poor dears, but I've never known it answer. This new breath, out through my rafters, up through my floors, down my chimneys, in at my windows — just the same as it used to be. Very pleasant while it lasts — poor young things.'7 It was only natural that the House, long practised in the THE FINEST THING 99 affairs of men, should perceive these movements in advance of the Trenchard family. As to warning the Trenchards, that was not the House's business. It was certainly owing to no especial virtue of perception that Aunt Aggie decided that she would spend the afternoon of the day following the dinner-party in the drawing-room. This decision was owing to the physical fact that she fancied that she had a slight cold, and the spiritual one that her sister Harriet had said : would she mind being most unselfish : would she stay in and receive callers as she, Har- riet, was compelled to attend an unfortunate Committee? There was nothing that Aunt Aggie could have preferred to sitting close to the drawing-room fire, eating muffin if alone, and being gracious were there company. However, Harriet had said that it would be unselfish — therefore un- selfish it was. Katherine, it appeared, also intended to stay at home. "You needn't, my dear," said Aunt Aggie, "I promised your mother. I had rather looked forward to going to the Misset-Faunders', but never mind — I promised your mother." "I'm sure it's better for your cold that you shouldn't go out," said Katherine. "I think you ought to be upstairs — in bed with a hot bottle." "My cold's nothing" — Aunt Aggie's voice was sharp. "Certainly the Misset-Faunders wouldn't have hurt it. I could have gone in a cab. But I promised your mother. . . . It's a pity. They always have music on their second Fridays. Alice plays the violin very well . . * and I dare say, after all, no one will come this afternoon. You really needn't bother to stay in, Katherine." "I think I will to-day," said Katherine quietly. So aunt and niece sat, one on each side of the fire, wait- ing. Katherine was very quiet, and Aunt Aggie, who, like all self-centred people, was alarmed by silence, spun a little web of chatter round and round the room. 100 THE GREEN MIRROR "It was all quite pleasant last night I thought; I must say Lord John can make himself very agreeable if he pleases. How did you think Rachel was looking? I wanted to ask her about Michael, who had a nasty little cold last week, but Mr. Mark quite absorbed her — talking about his Russia, I suppose. I don't suppose anyone will come this afternoon. The very last thing Clare Faunder said on Sunday was 'Mind you come on Friday. We've some special music on Friday, and I know how you love it.' But of course one must help your mother when one can. Your Aunt Betty would take one of her walks. Walking in London seems to me such an odd thing to do. If everyone walked what would the poor cabmen and busses do ? One must think of others, especially with the cold weather coming on." Her voice paused and then dropped; she looked sharply across at Katherine, and realized that the girl had not been listening. She was staring up into the Mirror; in her eyes was the look of burning, dreaming expectation that had on that other afternoon been so alarming. At that moment Rocket opened the door and announced Philip Mark. Katherine's eyes met Philip's for an instant, then they travelled to Aunt Aggie. That lady rose with the little tremor of half-nervous, half-gratified greeting that she al- ways bestowed on a guest. She disliked Mr. Mark cordially, but that was no reason why the memory of an hour or two filled with close attention from a young man should not brighten to-morrow's reminiscences. She was conscious also that she was keeping guard over Katherine. Not for an instant would she leave that room until Mr. Mark had also left it. She looked at the two young people, Katherine flushed with the fire, Philip flushed with the frosty day, and regarded with satisfaction their distance one from the other. Tea was brought ; life was very civilised ; the doors were all tightly closed. Philip had come with the determined resolve of asking THE FINEST THING 101 Katherine to marry him. Last night he had not slept. With a glorious Katherine at his side he had paced his room, his soul in the stars, his body somewhere underground. All day he had waited for a decent hour to arrive. He had almost run to the house. Now he was faced by Aunt Aggie. As he smiled at her he could have taken her little body, her bundle of clothes, her dried little soul, crunched it to nothing in his hands and flung it into the fire. Although he gave no sign of outward dismay, he was rag- ing with impatience. He would not look at Katherine lest, borne upon some wave of passion stronger than he, he should have rushed across the room, caught her to his side, and so defied all the Trenchard decencies; he knew that it was wiser, at present, to preserve them. They talked about Rachel Seddon, Dinner-parties, Cold Weather, Dancing, Exercise, growing Stout, Biscuits, the best Church in London, Choirs, Committees, Aunt Aggie's duties, growing Thin, Sleeplessness, Aunt Aggie's trials, Chilblains, Cold Weather. ... At this renewed appearance of the weather Philip noticed an old calf-bound book lying upon a little table at his side. Behind his eyes there flashed the discovery of an idea. "Pride and Prejudice," he said. "Oh !" cried Katherine. "That's one of Father's precious Jane Austen's — a first edition. He keeps them all locked up in his study. Henry must have borrowed that one. They're never allowed to lie about." Philip picked it up. From between the old leaves, brown a little now, with the black print sunk deep into their very heart, there stole a scent of old age, old leather, old tobacco, old fun and wisdom. Philip had opened it where Mr. Collins, proposing to Elizabeth Bennet, declines to accept her refusal. "I am not now to learn," replied Mr. Collins, with a formal wave of the hand, "that it is usual with young ladies to reject the addresses of the man whom they secretly mean 102 THE GREEN MIEROK to accept, when lie first applies for their favour; and that sometimes the refusal is repeated a second, or even a third time. I am, therefore, by no means discouraged by what you have just said, and shall hope to lead you to the altar ere long." "Upon my word, sir," cried Elizabeth, "your hope is rather an extraordinary one after my declaration. I do assure you that I am not one of those young ladies (if such young ladies there are) who are so daring as to risk their happiness on the chance of being asked a second time. I am perfectly serious in my refusal. You could not make me happy, and I am convinced that I am the last woman in the world who would make you so. Nay, were your friend Lady Catherine to know me, I am persuaded she would find me in every respect ill-qualified for the situation." "Were it certain that Lady Catherine would think so," said Mr. Collins very gravely- -"but I cannot imagine that her ladyship would at all disapprove of you. And you may be certain that when I have the honour of seeing her again, I shall "peak in the highest terms of your modesty, economy, and other amiable qualifications." " 'Pride and Prejudice,' I always thought," said Aunt Aggie with amiable approval, "a very pretty little tale. It's many years since I read it. Father read it aloud to us, I remember, when we were girls." Philip turned a little from her, as though he would have the light more directly over his shoulder. He had taken a piece of paper from his pocket, and in an instant he had written in pencil : "I love you. Will you marry me ? Philip." This he slipped between the pages. He knew that Katherine had watched him ; very gravely he passed the book across to her, then he turned to Aunt Aggie, and with a composure that surprised himself, paid her a little of the deference that she needed. Katherine, with hands that trembled, had opened the THE FINEST THING 103 book. She found the piece of paper, saw the words, and then, in a sort of dreaming bewilderment, read to the bottom of the old printed page. "Mr. Collins thus addressed her: "When I do myself the honour of speaking to you next on this subject, I shall hope to receive a more favourable answer than you have now given me; though I am far from accus- ing you of cruelty at present, because I know it to be the established custom of your sex to reject a man on the first- She did not turn the page; for a moment she waited, her mind quite empty of any concentrated thought, her eyes see- ing nothing but the shining, glittering expanse of the Mirror. Very quickly, using a gold pencil that hung on to her watch chain, she wrote below his name : "Yes. Katherine." "Let me see the book, my dear," said Aunt Aggie. 'You must know, Mr. Mark, that I care very little for novels. There is so much to do in this world, so many people that need care, so many things that want attention, that I think one is scarcely justified in spending the precious time over stories. But I own Miss Austen is a memory — a really precious memory to me. Those little simple stories have their charm still, Mr. Mark. . . . Yes. . . . Thank you, my dear." She took the book from Katherine, and began very slowly to turn over the pages, bending upon Miss Austen's labours exactly the look of kindly patronage that she would have bent upon that lady herself had she been present. Katherine glanced at Philip, half rose in her chair, and then sat down again. She felt, as she waited for the dread- ful moment to pass, a sudden perception of the family- until this moment they had not occurred to her. She saw her mother, her father, her grandfather, her aunts, Henry, Millie. Let this affair be suddenly flung upon them as a result of Aunt Aggie's horrified discovery and the tumult would be, indeed, terrible. The silence in the room, during those moments, almost forced her to cry out. 104 THE GEEEN MIEEOK Had Philip not been there she would have rushed to her aunt, torn the hook from her hands, and surrendered to the avalanche. Aunt Aggie paused — she peered forward over the page. With a little cry Katherine stood up, her knees trembling, her eyes dimmed, as though the room were filled with fog. "I doubt very much," said Aunt Aggie, "whether I could read it now. It would seem strangely old-fashioned, I dare- say, I'm sure to a modern young man like yourself, Mr. Mark." Philip took the book from her ; he opened it, read Kather- ine's answer, laid the volume very carefully upon the table. "I can assure, Miss Trenchard," he said, "a glance is enough to assure me that 'Pride and Prejudice' is and al- ways will be my favourite novel." Katherine moved to the table, picked up the book, and slipped the paper from the leaves into her belt. For an in- stant her hand touched Philip's. Aunt Aggie looked at them, and satisfied with hot tea, a fire, a perfect conscience and a sense of her real importance in the business of the world, thought to herself — "Well, this afternoon at any rate those two have had no chance." V She was drowsy and anxious for a little rest before dinner, but her guard, she assured herself with a pleasant little bit of conscious self-sacrifice, should not be relaxed. . . . Eleven had boomed that night, from the Abbey clock, when Philip Mark took his stand opposite the old house, looking up, as all the lovers in fiction and most of the lovers in real life have done, at his mistress' window. A little red glow of light was there. The frosty night had showered its sky with stars, frozen into the blue itself in this clear air, a frozen sea ; an orange moon scooped into a dazzling curve, lay like a sail that had floated from, its vessel, idly above the town; the plane trees rustled softly once and again, as though, now that the noise of men had died away, they might THE FINEST THING 105 whisper in comfort together. Sometimes a horn blew from the river, or a bell rang. Philip waited there, and worshipped with all the humil- ity and reverence of a human soul at the threshold of Love. v The lights in the house went out. Now all the Trenchards were lying upon their backs, their noses towards the ceilings, the ceilings that shut off that starry sky. They were very secure, fenced round by Westminster. No danger could threaten their strong fortress. . . . Their very dreams were winged about with security, their happy safety was penetrated by no consciousness of that watching, motionless figure, CHAPTER VI THE SHOCK GEORGE TREXCHARD'S study expressed, very pleas- antly, his personality. The room's walls were of a deep warm red, and covering three sides ran high bookcases with glass fronts ; within these bookcases were beautiful new editions, ugly old ones, books, for the greater part, relating to his favourite period, all ranged and ordered with the most delicate care. The windows of the room wrere tall and bright even on dull and foggy days, the carpet soft and thick, the leather chairs large and yielding, the fireplace wide and shin- ing. Most significant of all was his writing-table ; upon this lay everything that any writer could possibly desire, from the handsomest of ^old inkstands to the minutest of elastic VlJ bands. There was also here a little bust of Sir Walter Scott. Within this room George Trenchard knew, always, perfect happiness — a very exceptional man, indeed, that he could know it so easily. He knew it by the simple expedient of shutting off entirely from his consciousness the rest of man- O i/ kind; his studv door once closed, he forgot his familv abso- t/ t/ lutely. !N~o one was allowed to disturb or interrupt him ; it- was understood that he was at work upon a volume that would ultimately make another of that series that contained alreadv such well-known books as "William Wordsworth t and his Circle," "Hazlitt — The Man in his Letters" and "The Life of Thomas de Quincey." These had appeared a number of years ago ; he had been indeed a young man when he had written them. It was supposed that a work entitled 103 THE SHOCK 107 "The Lake Poets, a Critical Survey" would appear 'Next Autumn'. For some time now the literary schemes of the weekly journals had announced this. George Trenchard only laughed at enquiries: "It takes a damned long time, you know/' he said, " 'tisn't any use rushing the thing." He enjoyed, however, immensely, making notes. From half- past nine in the morning until half-past one, behind his closed doors, he considered the early Nineteenth Century, found it admirable (Scott seemed to him the perfect type) took first one book, then another from his book-shelves, wrote a few lines, and before his fire imagined the Trenchards of that period, considered their food and their drink, their morals, their humour and their literature. Hazlitt's essays seemed to him the perfection, not of English prose, but of a temporal and spiritual attitude. "Hang it all," he would conclude, "we're a rotten lot now-a-days." He did not worry over this conclusion, but it gave him the opportunity of a superior attitude during the rest of the day when he joined the world. "If you knew as much about the early Nine- teenth Century as I do.'' he seemed to sav, "you wouldn't t/ / •/ X w be so pleased with yourselves." He did not, however, ex- press his superiority in any unpleasant manner. There was never anvone more amiable. All that he wanted was that t/ everyone should be happy, and to be that, he had long ago discovered, one must not go too deep. "Keep out of close relationships and you're safe" might be considered his advice to young people. He had certainly avoided them all his life, and avoided them bv lauffhinff at them. He couldn't abide i/ O "gloomy fellows" and on no account would he allow a 'scene'. He had never lost his temper. During the months that he spent at his place in Glebeshire he pursued a plan identically similar. He possessed an in- valuable 'factotum', a certain James Kitchie, who took everything in a way of management off his hands. Ritchie 108 THE GREEN MIRROR in Glebeshire, Mrs. Trenchard and Rocket in London. Life was made very simple for him. As has been said elsewhere, Katherine, alone of his fam- ily, had in some degree penetrated his indifferent jollity; that was because she really did seem to him to have some of the Early Nineteenth Century characteristics. She seemed to him (he did not know her very well) tranquil, humorous, unadventurous, but determined. She reminded him of Elizabeth Bennet, and he always fancied (he re- garded her, of course, from a distance,) that she would make a very jolly companion. She seemed to him wiser than the others, with a little strain of satirical humour in her com- ment on things that pleased him greatly. "She should have been the boy, and Henry the girl," he would say. He thought Henry a terrible ass. He was really anxious that Katherine should be happy. She deserved it, he thought, because she was a little wiser than the others. He considered sometimes her future, and thought that it would be agreeable to have her always about the place, but she must not be an old maid. She was too good for that. "She'd breed a good stock," he would say. "She must marry a decent fellow — one day." He delighted in the gentle postponement of possibly charm- ing climaxes. His size, geniality and good appetite may be attributed very largely to his happy gifts of procrastination. "Always leave until to-morrow what ought to be done to- day" had made him the best-tempered of men. After luncheon on the day that followed Philip's tea with Aunt Aggie, George Trenchard retired to his study "to finish a chapter". He intended to finish it in his head rather than upon paper, and it was even possible that a nap would postpone the conclusion ; he lit his pipe and preferred to be comfortable — it was then that Rocket informed him that Mr. Mark had called, wished to see him alone, would not keep him long, apologised, but it was important. "Why the devil couldn't he come to lunch ? What a time THE SHOCK 100 to appear!" JBut Trenchard liked Philip, Philip amused him — he was so alive and talked such ridiculous nonsense. "Of course he would see him !" Then when Trenchard saw Philip Mark standing inside the room, waiting, with a smile half-nervous, half-friendly, the sight of that square, sturdy young man gave him to his own uneasy surprise a moment of vague and unreasonable alarm. George Trenchard was not accustomed to feelings of alarm; it was his principle in life that he should deny himself such things. He connected now. however, this verv momentarv sensa- ' f €/ f tion with other little sensations that he had felt before in Philip's company. The young man was so damnably full of his experiences, so eager to compare one thing with an- other, so insistent upon foreign places and changes in Eng- land and what we'd all got to do about it. Trenchard did not altogether dislike this activity. That was the devil of it. It would never do to change his life at this time of day. . . . He stood, large, genial, and rosy, in front of his fire. "Well, young man, what are you descending upon us at this hour for ? Why couldn't you come to lunch ?" "I wanted to speak to you seriously about something. I wanted to see you alone." "Well, here I am. Sit down. Have a cigar." Trenchard saw that Philip was nervous, and he liked him the better for that. "He's a nice young fellow, nice and clean and healthy — not too cocksure either, although he's clever." Philip, on his part, felt, at this moment, a desperate de- termination to make all the Trenchard family love him. They must. . . . They MUST. His heart was bursting with charity, with fine illusions, with self-deprecation, with Trenchard exultation. He carried the flaming banner of one who loves and knows that he is loved in return. He looked round upon George Trenchard's bookcases and 110 THE GKEEN MIEEOE thought that there could, surely, be nothing finer than writ- ing critical books about early Nineteenth Century Litera- ture. "I love Katherine," he said, sitting on the very edge of his arm-chair. "And she loves me. We want to be married." George Trenchard stared at him. "Well, I'm damned!" he said at last, "you've got some cheek !" His first impression was one of a strange illumina- tion around and about Katherine, as though his daughter had been standing before him in the dark and then had sud- denly been surrounded with blazing candles. Although he had, as has been said, already considered the possibility of Katherine's marriage, he had never considered the possibil- ity of her caring for someone outside the family. That struck him, really, as amazing. That made him regard his daughter, for a moment, as someone quite new and strange. He burst into laughter. "It's ridiculous !" he said. "Why ! you two have scarcely seen one another!" Philip blushed, but looked up into Trenchard's face with eyes that were strangely pleading for a man who could, at other times, be so firmly authoritative. "I know that it must seem so to you," he said. "But really we have met a good deal. I knew from the very be- ginning. . . . I'll make her happy," he ended, almost de- fiantly, as though he were challenging some unseen enemy. "Well, state your case," said Trenchard. "I love her," he stammered a little, then his voice cleared and he stared straight before him at Trenchard's velvet waistcoat. "Of course there've been people in my life be- fore, but I've never felt anything like this. I should like to tell you that my life is absolutely free from any entangle- ments— of any kind. I'm thirty and as fit as a fiddle. My share in the business and some other things come to about fifteen hundred a year. It's all very decently invested, but, of course, I'd show .you all that. I'm not bad about manag- THE SHOCK 111 ing those things, although you mightn't think so. I want to buy a little place somewhere in England and settle down — a little place with a bit of land. I do think I could make Katherine happy — I'd devote myself to that." "She cares for you?" asked Trenchard. "Yes," said Philip quite simply. "Well, I'm damned," said Trenchard. This was not so rude as it appeared to be. He was not thinking about Philip at all — only about Katherine. She had fallen in love, she, Katherine, the staid, humorous, comfortable companion. He had not realised, until now, that he had always extracted much complacent comfort from the belief that she cared for him more than for any other member of the family. He did not know that every indi- vidual member extracted from Katherine the same comfort. He looked at Philip. What did she see in the man to lead her to such wild courses? He was nice enough to look at, to listen to — but to love? It seemed to him that his quiet daughter must have been indulging in melodrama. "Why, you know," he cried at last, "it never entered my head — Katherine's marrying anybody. She's very young — you're very young too." "I don't know," said Philip, "I'm thirty — lots of men have families by then." "No, but you're young though — both of you," persisted Trenchard. "I don't think I want Katherine to marry any- body." "Isn't that rather selfish ?" said Philip. "Yes. I suppose it is," said Trenchard, laughing, "but it's natural." "It isn't, you see," said Philip eagerly, "as though I wanted to take her away to Kussia or in any way deprive you of her. I know how much she is to all of you. She's sure to marry some day, isn't she ? and it's much better that she should marry someone who's going to settle down here THE GREEN" MIRROR and live as you all do than someone who'd go right off with her." "It's all right, I shouldn't let him/' said Trenchard. He bent his eyes upon the eager lover, and again said to him- self that he liked the young man. It would certainly he much pleasanter that Katherine should care about a fine healthy young fellow, a good companion after dinner, a good listener with a pleasant sense of humour, than that she should force into the heart of the family some impossi- bility— not that Katherine was likely to care about impossi- bilities, but you never knew ; the world to-day was so full of impossibilities. . . . "I think we'll send for Katherine," he said. He rang the bell, Rocket came, Katherine was summoned. As they waited Trenchard delivered himself of a random, half-humorous, half-conscious, half-unconscious discourse: "You know, I like you — and I don't often like modern young men. I wouldn't mind you at all as a son-in-law, and you'd suit me as a son much better than Henry does. At least I think so, but then I know you very slightly, and I may dislike you intensely later on. We none of us know you, you see. We never had anybody drop in upon us as you did. ... It doesn't seem to me a bit like Katherine — and I don't suppose she knows you any better than the rest of us do. She mayn't like you later on. I can't say that marriage is going to be what you think it is. You're very unsettling. You won't keep quiet and take things easily, and Katherine is sure not to like that. She's as quiet as anything. ... If it were Millie now. I suppose you wouldn't care to have Millie instead ? she'd suit you much better. Then, you know, the family won't like your doing it. My wife won't like it." He paused, then, stand- ing, his legs wide apart, his hands deep in his pockets, roared with laughter: "It will disturb them all — not that it won't be good for them perhaps. You're not to think though that I've given my consent — at any rate you're not to marry her THE SHOCK 113 for a long time until we see what you're like. I'm not to give her just to anyone who comes along, you know. I rather wish you'd stayed in Eussia. It's very unsettling." The door opened — Katherine entered. She looked at Philip, smiled, then came across to her father and put her arm through his. She said nothing, but was radiant; her father felt her hand tremble as it touched his, and that sud- denly moved him as, perhaps, nothing had ever moved him before. "Do you want to marry him ?" he asked. "Yes," she answered. "But you hardly know him." "I know him very well indeed," she said, looking at Philip's eyes. "But I don't want you to marry anyone," her father went on. "We were all very nice as we were. . . . What'll you do if I say you're not to marry him?" "You won't say that," she answered, smiling at him. "What do you want to marry him for ?" he asked. "He's just an ordinary young man. You don't know him," he re- peated, "you can't yet, you've seen so little of him. Then you'll upset us all here very much — it will be very un- pleasant for everybody. Do you really think it's worth it ?" Katherine laughed. "I don't think I can help it, father," she answered. Deep in Trenchard's consciousness was the conviction, very common to men of good digestion over fifty, that had he been God he would have managed the affairs of the world very agreeably for everybody. He had not, often, been in the position of absolute power, but that was because he had not often taken the trouble to come out of his comfortable shelter and see what people were doing. He felt now that he could be Jove for a quarter of an hour without any dis- comfort to himself — a very agreeable feeling. He was also the most kind-hearted of men. "Seriously, Katherine," he said, separating himself from her. drawing 114 THE GKEEN MIKKOK his legs together and frowning, "you're over age. You can do what you like. In these days children aren't supposed to consider their parents, and I don't really see why they should . . . it's not much I've done for you. But you're fond of us. We've rather hung together as a family. . . . I like your young man, but I've only known him a week or two, and I can't answer for him. You know us, but you don't know him. Are you sure you're making a wise ex- change ?" Here Philip broke in eagerly but humbly. "It isn't that there need be any change," he said. "Katherine shall be- long to you all just as much as ever she did." "Thank you," said Trenchard laughing. "I'll be proud," Philip cried, impulsively, jumping up from his chair, "if you'll let me marry Katherine, but I'll never forget that she was yours first. Of course I can't come into the family as though I'd always been one of you, but I'll do my best. . . . I'll do my best. . . ." "My dear boy," said Trenchard, touched by the happy atmosphere that he seemed, with a nod of his head, to fling about him, "don't think I'm preventing you. I want every- one to be pleased, I always have. If you and Katherine have made up your minds about this, there isn't very much for me to say. If I thought you'd make her miserable I'd show you the door, but I don't think you will. All I say is we don't know you well enough yet. 2Tor does she. After all, does she?" He paused, and then, enjoying the sense of their listening attention, thought that he would make a little speech. "You're like children in a dark wood, you know. You think you've found one another — caught hold of one another — but when there's a bit of a moon or some- thing to see one another by you may find out you've each of you caught hold of someone quite different. Then, there you are, you see. That's all I can tell you about marriage ; all your lives you'll be in the forest, thinking you've made a clutch at somebody, just for comfort's sake. But you never THE SHOCK 115 know whom you're catching — it's someone different every five minutes, even when it's the same person. Well, well — all I mean is that you mustn't marry for a year at least." "Oh ! a year !" cried Philip. "Yes, a year. Won't hear of it otherwise. What do you say, Katherine ?" "I think Philip and I can wait as long as that quite safely," she answered, looking at her lover. Trenchard held out his hand to Philip. "I congratulate you," he said. "If you've made Katherine love you you're a lucky fellow. Dear me — yes, you are." He put his hand on Philip's shoulder. "You'd better be good to her," he said, "or there'll be some who'll make you pay for it." good to her! My God!" answered Philip. you'd better clear. Reveal yourselves to the fam- ily. . . . There, Katherine, my dear, give me a kiss. Don't neglect me or I shall poison the villain. . . . There, there — God bless you." He watched them depart with real affection both for them and for himself. "I'm not such a bad father after all," he thought as he settled down into his chair. Outside the study door, in the dark corner of the little passage, Philip kissed Katherine. Her lips met his with a passion that had in it complete and utter self-surrender. They did not speak. At last, drawing herself gently away from him, she said: CTH tell Mother — I think it would be better not for both of us. . . ." "Yes," he whispered back, as though they were conspira- tors. "I don't think I'll face them all now — unless you'd like me to help you. I'll come in to-night." With a strange, fierce, almost desperate action she caught his arm and held him for a moment with his cheek against hers. 116 THE GREEN MIRROR "Oh! Philip . . . my dear I" Her voice caught and broke. They kissed once again, and then, very quietly, went back into the world. Meanwhile they had been watched; Henry had watched them. He had been crossing at the farther end of the little passage, and stopping, holding himself back against the wall, had seen, with staring eyes, the two figures. He knew in- stantly. They were Philip and Katherine. He saw Kather- ine's hand as it pressed into Philip's shoulder; he saw Philip's back set with so fierce a strength that Henry's knees trembled before the energy of it. He was disgusted — he was wildly excited. "This is real life. . . . I've seen some- €/ thing at last. I didn't know people kissed like that, but they oughtn't to do it in the passage. Anyone might see them. . . . Katherine !" Staggered by the contemplation of an utterly new Kath- erine with whom, for the rest of his life, he would be com- pelled to deal, he slipped into a room as he heard their steps. When they had gone he came out ; he knocked on his father's door: "I'm sorry to bother you, Father," he began. "I wanted to know whether I might borrow — '' he stopped; his heart was beating so wildly that his tongue did not belong to him. Well, get it and cut." His father looked at him. You've heard the news, I see." What news ?" said Henry. Philip and Katherine. They're engaged, they tell me. Not to marry for a year though. , . . I thought you'd heard it by the look of you. What a mess you're in ! Why can't you brush your hair ? Look at your tie up the back of your collar ! Get your book and go ! I'm busy !" But Henry went without his book. Katherine went up to her mother's room. She would catch her alone now for half an hour before tea-time, when many of the family would be assembled, ready for the news. a a a u THE SHOCK 117 With such wild happiness was she surrounded that she saw them all in the light of that happiness; she had always shared so readily in any piece of good fortune that had ever befallen any one of them that she did not doubt that now they too would share in this fortune — this wonderful for- tune! — of hers. She stopped at the little window in the passage where she had had the first of her little personal scraps of talk with Philip. Little scraps of talks were all that they had been, and yet now, looking back upon them, how weighted they seemed with heavy golden significance. The sky was amber-coloured, the Abbey tower sharply black, and the low archway of Dean's Yard, that she could just catch with her eye, was hooped against the sky, pushing up- wards to have its share in the evening light. There was perfect quiet in the house and beyond it, as she went to her mother's room. This room was the very earliest thing that she could remember, this, or her mother's bedroom in the Glebeshire house. It was a bedroom that exactly ex- pressed Mrs. Trenchard, large, clumsy, lit with five windows, mild and full of unarranged trifles that nevertheless ar- ranged themselves. At the foot of the large bed, defended with dark sateen faded curtains, was a comfortable old- fashioned sofa. Further away in the middle of a clear space was a table with a muddle of things upon it — a doll half- clothed, a writing-case, a silver inkstand, photographs of Millie, Henry and Katherine, a little younger than they were now, a square silver clock, a pile of socks with a needle sticking sharply out of them, a little oak book-case with 'Keble's Christian Year', Charlotte Yonge's 'Pillars of the House', two volumes of Bishop Westcott's 'Sermons' and Mrs. Gaskell's 'Wives and Daughters'. There was also a little brass tray with a silver thimble, tortoiseshell paper- knife, a little mat made of bright-coloured beads, a reel of red silk and a tiny pocket calendar. Beside the bed there was a small square oaken table with a fine silver Crucifix and a Bible and a prayer book and copy of 'Before the 118 THE GREEK MIRROft Throne' In dark blue leather. The pictures on the walls — they hung against a wall-paper of pink roses, faded like the bedroom curtains and the dark red carpet, but comfortably, happily faded — were prints of 'Ulysses Deriding Poly- phemus', 'Crossing the Brook', and 'Christ leaving the Temple'. These three pictures were the very earliest things of Katherine's remembrance. There were also several photo- graphs of old-fashioned but sturdy ladies and gentlemen — an officer in uniform, a lady with high shoulders against a back- ground of a grey rolling sea. There were photographs of the children at different ages. There were many cupboards, and these, although they were closed, seemed to bulge, as though they contained more clothes than was comfortable for them. There was a faint scent in the room of eau-de-cologne and burning candles. The little clock on the table gave an irritating, self-important whirr and clatter now and then, and it had been doing that for a great many years. Mrs. Trenchard was lying upon her sofa making a little crimson jacket for the half-clothed doll. She did not move when Katherine came in, but went on with her work, her fat, rather clumsy-looking fingers moving very comfortably up and down the little piece of red cloth. "Who is that ?" she said. "It's I, Mother," said Katherine, remaining by the door. "Ah, it's you, dear," her mother answered. "Just give me that doll on the table. It's for Miss Sawyer's Bazaar in the Hampstead Rooms. I said I'd dress three dolls, and I only remembered this morning that they've got to go off to- morrow. I thought I'd snatch this quiet time before tea. Yes, it's for Miss Sawyer, poor thing. I'm sure I shall run out of red silk, and I don't suppose there's any in the house. Did you want anything, Katherine?" Katherine came forward, picked up the doll from the table and gave it to her mother. Then she went to one of the broad high windows and stood looking out. She could THE SHOCK 119 see the river, over whose face the evening, studded with golden lamps, was dropping its veil. She could see, very dimly, Westminster Bridge, with dots and little splashes of black passing and repassing with the mechanical indif- ference of some moving toy. The sight of her mother's room had suddenly told her that her task would he a supremely difficult one; she did not know why she had not realised that before. Her personal happiness was overwhelmed by her consciousness of her mother; nothing at this moment seemed to be of importance save their relations, the one to the other. "I'm going to hurt her," she thought, as she turned round from the window. All her life it had been her urgent passion to save her mother from pain. "Mother dear," she said, "I've got something very im- portant to tell you. Mr. Mark has asked me to marry him, and I've accepted him. Father says we're to wait for a year." She moved forward and then stopped. Mrs. Trenchard looked at her, suddenly, as a house of cards crumples up at a single touch, her face puckered as though she were going to cry. For an instant it was like the face of a baby. It was so swift that in a flash it was gone, and only in the eyes there was still the effect of it. Her hands trembled so that she forced them down upon her lap. Then her face, except for her eyes, which were terrified, wore again exactly her look of placid, rather stupid composure. The force that she had driven into her hands had clone its work, for now she could raise them again; in one hand she held the doll and in another the little red jacket. "My dear Katherine!" she said. Then — "Just give me that reel of silk, dear, on the table." Then— "But it's absurd — you don't- ' she seemed to struggle with her words as though she were beating back some other personality that threatened to rise and overwhelm her. 'You don't- She found her words. "You don't know him." Katherine broke in eagerly. "I loved him at the very 120 THE GREEN MIEEOE beginning I think. I felt I knew him at once. I don't know; it's so hard to see how it began, but I can't help it, Mother. I've known it myself for weeks now; Mother- She knelt down beside the sofa and looked up, and then, at something in her mother's eyes, looked down again. "Please — please — I know it seems strange to you now, but soon you'll get to know him — then you'll be glad — " She broke off, and there followed a long silence. Mrs. Trenchard put down the doll very carefully, and then, with her hands folded on her lap, lay back on her sofa. She watched the dark evening as it gathered in beyond the windows; she heard her maid's knock on the door, watched her draw the curtains and switch on the light. It was only four o'clock, but it was very cold. "I think I'll have my shawl, dear," said Mrs. Trenchard. "The Indian one that your Uncle Timothy gave me — it's in the third drawer — there — to the right. . . . Thank you. I must go down. Grandfather's coming down to tea this afternoon." Katherine drew closer to the sofa, after she had brought the shawl ; she laid her hand upon her mother's, which were very cold. "But, Mother, you've said nothing! I know that now it must seem as though I'd done it without asking you, without telling you, but I didn't know myself until yesterday after- noon. It came so suddenly." "Yesterday afternoon ?" Mrs. Trenchard drew her shawl closely about her. "But how could he — Mr. Mark — yester- day afternoon? You weren't alone with him — Aggie was there. Surely she — " "K~o. He wrote on a piece of paper and slipped it across to me, and I said 'yes.' We both felt we couldn't wait." "I don't like him," Mrs. Trenchard said* slowly. "You knew that I didn't like him." The colour rose in Katherine's cheeks. THE SHOCK 121 "No," she said, "I knew that you thought some of his ideas odd. But you didn't know him." "I don't like him/' said Mrs. Trenchard again. "I could never like him. He isn't a religious man. He has a bad effect upon Henry. You, Katherine, to accept him when you know that he doesn't go to church and was so rude to poor Mr. Seymour and thinks Russia such a fine country ! I can't think," said Mrs. Trenchard, her hands trembling again, "what's come over you." Katherine got up from her knees. "You won't think that when you know him better. It's only that he's seen more of the world than we have. He'll change and we'll change, and perhaps it will be better for all of us. Down in Glebe- shire we always have done so much the same things and seen the same people, and even here in London — " Her mother gave a little cry, not sharp for anyone else in the world, but very sharp indeed for Mrs. Trenchard. "You ! Katherine— you ! If it had been Millie !" They looked at one another then in silence. They were both of them conscious of an intensity of love that they had borne towards one another through the space of a great many years — a love that nothing else had ever approached. But it was an emotion that had always been expressed in the quietest terms. Both to Katherine and her mother demon- strations were unknown. Katherine felt now, at what promised to be, perhaps, the sharpest crisis that her life had yet experienced, an urgent desire to break through, to fling her arms round her mother, to beat down all barriers, to as- sure her that whatever emotion might come to her, nothing could touch their own perfect relationship. But the habits of years muffled everything in thick, thick wrappings — it was impossible to break through. "Your father is pleased ?" said Mrs. Trenchard. "Yes," answered Katherine. "He likes Philip. But we must wait a year." 122 THE GEEEN MIEEOE "Your father has never told me anything. Never." She got up slowly from the sofa. "He couldn't have told you," Katherine said eagerly. "He has only just known. I came straight to you from him." Mrs. Trenchard now stood, looking rather lost, in the middle of her room; the shawl had slipped half from her shoulders, and she seemed, suddenly, an old woman. The vision of something helpless in her, as she stood there, stirred Katherine passionately. She took her mother into her arms, stroking her hair, kissing her cheeks and whispering to her: "Darling — • darling — it doesn't make any difference to us — it can't — it can't. Nothing can. Nothing. . . . Nothing!" Mrs. Trenchard kissed her daughter very quietly, re- mained in her embrace for a little, then drew herself away and went to her mirror. She tidied her hair, patted her dress, put some eau-de-Cologne on her handkerchief, laid the shawl carefully away in the drawer. "I must go down now. Father will want his tea. I'll take the doll — -I shan't have another chance of finishing it." She walked to the door, then, turning, said with an intensity that was amazing in its sudden vehemence and fire: "No one shall take you from me, Katherine. No one. Let him do what he likes. No one shall take you." She did not appear an old woman, then, as she faced her daughter. Meanwhile, in the drawing-room, the family had already gathered together as though it were aware that something had occurred. Mr. Trenchard, Senior, surrounded by his rugs, his especial table, his silver snuff-box (he never took snuff in the drawing-room, but liked his box to be there), a case of spectacles, and the last number of 'Blackwood's Magazine'. Great Aunt Sarah, Aunt Aggie, Aunt Betty, and Millie. Millie, watching them, was, to her own immense surprise, sorry for them. THE SHOCK 123 Millie, watching them, wondered at herself. What had happened to her ? She had returned from Paris, eager to find herself as securely inside the family as she had always been — longing after the wide, vague horizons of the outside world to feel that security. She had laughed at them a little, perhaps, but she had always understood and approved of their motives. l^ow she found herself at everv turn criticising, wonder- v O/ ing, defending against her own intelligence, as though she had been the merest stranger. She loved them — all of them — but — how strong they were! And how terrible of her that she should find them strange! They were utterly un- aware of any alteration in her; she seemed to herself to be a spy in their midst. . . . Happily, however, they were all, this afternoon, most comfortably unaware of any criticism from anyone in the world. They sat about the room, waiting for their tea and saying very little. They knew one another so well that con- versation was a mere emphasis of platitudes. Aunt Aggie talked, but nobody listened, unless one of the above-men- tioned assurances were demanded. Her dry, sharp little voice, like the fire and the ticking of the clock, made an agreeable background. Upon this innocent gathering, so happy and tranquil, Henry burst with his news. He came with all the excited vehemence sprung from his own vision of the lovers. He could see only that; he did not realise that the others had not shared his experience. It was almost as though he had tumbled into the middle of them, so abrupt, so agitated, so incoherent was he! "They're engaged!" he burst out. "My dear Henry!" said Millie. "What's the matter?" "I tell you! Katherine and Mark. They've been into father, and he says they're to wait a year, but it's all right. He says that he didn't know till they told him. Katherine' s with Mother now, — Mark's coming in to-night; Katherine!" THE GREEN MIKKOE He broke off, words failed him, and he was suddenly conscious of his Uncle's eye. "What ?" said Aunt Aggie. "They5re engaged/9 repeated Henry. "Whom?" cried Aunt Aggie, ungrammatically, with a shrill horror that showed that she had already heard. "Katie and Philip," Henry almost screamed in reply. What Aunt Aggie, whose eyes were staring as though she saw ghosts or a man under her bed, would have said to this no one could say, but Aunt Sarah drove, like a four- wheeled coach, right across her protruding body. Aunt Sarah said: "What are you all talking about? «/ o What's the matter with Henry ? Is he ill ? I can't hear." Millie went up to her. "Katherine's engaged, Aunt Sarah, to Mr. Mark." "What do you say about Katherine?" "She's engaged." "She's what ?" "ENGAGED !" "Who to?" "Mr. Mark." "Eh? What?" "Mark !" At the shouting of that name it did indeed seem that the very walls and ceiling of that old room would collapse. To Aunt Aggie, to Millie, to Henry, to Aunt Betty, this raid upon Katherine struck more deeply than any cynical student of human nature could have credited. For the moment Philip Mark was forgotten — only was it apparent to them all from Grandfather Trenchard and Great Aunt Sarah to Henry that Katherine, their own absolute property, the assurance given to them that life would be always secure, solid, unalterable, had declared publicly, before the world, that she preferred a stranger, a complete, blown-from-any- where stranger, to the family. What would happen to them all, to their comforts, their secret preferences and THE SHOCK 125 habits (known as they all, individually, believed, only to Katherine), to their pride, to their self-esteem? They loved one another, yes, they loved the Trenchard family, the Trenchard position, but through all these things, as a skewer through beef, ran their reliance upon Katherine. It was as though someone had cried to them : "The whole of Glebe- shire is blown away — fields and houses, roads and rivers. You must go and live in Yorkshire. Glebeshire cares for you no longer!" "THEY'RE TO WAIT A YEAR, FATHER SAYS !" shouted Millie. Aunt Sarah shook her white-plumed head and snorted: "Katherine! Engaged! To a Stranger! Impossible!" Aunt Aggie was conscious, at the moment, of nothing ex- cept that she herself had been defeated. They had tricked her, those two. They had eluded her vigilance. 0 » . They were now, in all probability, laughing at her. "The last thing I want to do," she said, "is to blame anybody, but if I'd been listened to at the beginning, Mr0 Mark would never have been asked to stay. , . 0 It was thoughtless of George. !N~ow we can all see — " But Millie, standing before them all, her face flushed, said: "The chief thing is to consider Katherine's happiness. Mr. Mark is probably delightful. She was sure to marry somebody. How can people help falling in love with Kath- erine? We all love her. She loves us. I don't see what Mr. Mark can do to prevent that— and he won't want to. He must be nice if Katherine loves him !" But the final word was spoken by Grandfather Trenchard* who had been hitherto utterly silent. In his clear, silvery voice he said : "A great deal can happen in a year !" At that moment Katherine and her mother came in. BOOK II THE FEATHER BED CHAPTEE I KATHEEINE IN LOVE KATHEEIBTE TRENCHARD, although she had, for a number of years now, gone about the world with open eyes and an understanding heart, was, in very many ways, absurdly old-fashioned. I say "absurd" because many peo- ple, from amongst her own Trenchard relations, thought her prejudices, simplicities, and confidences absurd, and hoped that she would grow out of them. The two people who really knew her, her Uncle Timothy and Rachel Seddon, hoped that she never would. Her "old-fashioned" habits of mind led her to believe in "people" in "things" and in "causes", and it was her misfortune that up to this year of which I am speaking she had never been disappointed. That may be because she had grown up amongst the rocks, the fields, the lanes of Glebeshire, true ground where sincerity and truth flourish yet in abundance — moreover it is assured that man lives up to the qualities with which he is by his friends credited, and all the Trenchard family lived up to Kathar- ine's belief in their word of honour. She was not so simple a character that she found the world perfect, but she was in no way subtle, and, because she herself acted in her faults and virtues, her impetuosities and repentances, her dislikes and affections with clear-hearted simplicity, she believed that other persons did the same. Her love for her mother was of this quite unquestioning sort ; her religion too was perfectly direct and unquestion- ing: so, then, her love for Philip. . . . She had never before been in love, nor had she ever con- 129 130 THE GREEN MIRROK sidered men very closely as anything but visitors or rela- tions. The force and power of the passion that now held her was utterly removed from anything that had ever en- countered her before, but she was a strong character, and her simplicity of outlook helped her. Philip seemed to her to be possessed of all the qualities of the perfect hero. His cleverness, his knowledge of the world, his humour were only balanced by his kindness to everyone and everything, his unselfishness, his honesty of speech and eye. She had thought him, once, a little weak in his anxiety to be liked by all the world, but now that was forgotten. He was, dur- ing these days, a perfect character. She had not, however, lost her clear-sighted sense of humour; that humour was almost cynical sometimes in its sharp perception of people and things, and did not seem to belong to the rest of Katherine at all. It was driven more often upon herself than upon anyone else, but it was, for a character of Katherine's simplicity, strangely sharp. A fair field for the employment of it was offered to her just now in the various attitudes and dispositions of her own immediate family, but, as yet, she was unable to see the family at all, so blinding was Philip's radiance. That year England enjoyed one of the old romantic Christmases. There were sparkling dazzling frosts. The snow lay hard and shining under skies of unchanging blue, and on Christmas Eve, when the traffic and smoke of the toAvn had stolen the purity away, more snow fell and re- stored it again. It had always been the rule that the Trenchards should spend Christmas in Glebeshire, but, this year, typhoid fever had visited Garth onlv a month or two before, and London t/ 7 was held to be safer. Katherine had not had, in her life, so many entertainments that she could afford to be blase about them, and she still thought a Pantomime splendid, 'The Only Way" certainly the most magnificent play in the world, and a dance a thing of perfect rapture, if only KATHERINE IN LOVE 131 she could be more secure about the right shapes and colours of her clothes. She had no vanity whatever — indeed a little more would have helped her judgment: she never knew whether a dress would suit her, nor why it was that one thinff "looked riffht" and another thing; "looked wron.s;". o o ~ o Millie could have helped her, because Millie knew all about clothes, but it was always a case with Katherine of some- thing else coming first, of having to dress at the last minute, of "putting on any old thing because there was no time." Now, however, there was Philip to dress for, and she did really try. She went to Millie's dressmaker with Millie as her guide, but unfortunately Mrs. Trenchard, who had as little idea about dress as Katherine, insisted on coming too, and confused everyone by her introduction of personal mo- tives and religious dogmas into something that should have been simply a matter of ribbons and bows. Katherine, in- deed, was too happy to care. Philip loved her in any old thing, the truth being that when he went about with her, he paw very little except his own happiness. . . . It is certainly a fact that during these weeks neither of them saw the family at all. Eachel Seddon was the first person of the outside world to whom Katherine told the news. "So that was the matter with you that day when you came to see me !" she cried. "What day?" said Katherine. "You'd been frightened in the Park, thought someone was going to drop a bag over your head, and ran in here for safety." "I shall always run in here for safety," said Katherine gravely. Rachel came, in Katherine' s heart, in the place next to Mrs. Trenchard and Philip. Katherine had always told Rachel everything until that day of which Rachel had just spoken. There had been reticence then, there would be reticences always now. 132 THE GREEN" MIRROR "You will bring him very quickly to see me?" said Rachel. "I will bring him at once/'7 answered Katherine. Rachel had liked Philip when she met him at the Trenchards; now, when he came to call, she found that she did not get on with him. lie seemed to be suspicions of her: he was awkward and restrained. His very youthful desire to make the person he was with like him, seemed now to give way to an almost truculent surliness. "I don't care whether you like me or not," he seemed to say. "Katherine' s mine and not yours any longer." Neither Philip nor Rachel told Katherine that they did not like one another. Roddy Seddon, Rachel's husband, on the other hand, /iked Philip very much. Lying for many years on his back had given him a preference for visitors who talked readily and gaily, who could tell him about foreign countries, who did not too obviously pity him for being "out of the running, poor beggar." "You don't like the feller?" Roddy said to his wife. "He doesn't like me," said Rachel. "Rot," said Roddy. "You're both jealous. You both want Katherine." "I shan't be jealous," answered Rachel, "if he's good enough for her — if he makes her happy." "He seems to me a very decent sort of feller," said Roddy. Meanwhile Rachel adored Katherine's happiness. She had chafed for many years now at what she considered was the Trenchards' ruthless sacrifice of Katherine to their own selfish needs. "They're never going to let her have any life of her own," she said. Now Katherine "had a life of her own, and if only that might continue Rachel would ask no more. Rachel had had her own agonies and disciplines in the past, and they had left their mark upon her. She loved her husband and her child, and her life was sufficiently filled with their de- mands upon her, but she was apprehensive of happiness — KATHEKLNE IN LOVE 133 she saw the Gods taking away with one hand whilst they gave with the other. "I knew more ahout the world at ten/' she thought, "than Katherine will ever know. If she's hurt, it will be far worse for her than It ever was for me." Although she delighted in Katherine's happiness, she trembled at the utter absorption of it. "We aren't meant to trust anything so much/' she thought, "as Catherine trusts his love for her." Katherine, perhaps because she trusted so absolutely, did not at. present ask Philip any questions. They talked very little. They walked, they rode on the tops of omnibuses, they went to the Zoo and Madame Tussaud'a and the Tower, they had tea at the Carlton Eestaurant and lunch in Soho, they went to the Winter Exhibition at Burlington House, and heard a famous novelist give P portentous lecture on the novel at the "Times" Book Club. They were taken to a solemn evening at the Poets' Club, where ladies in evening dress read their own poetry, they went to a performance given by the Stage Society, and a tea-party given by four lady novelists at the Lyceum Club: old Lady Carloes, who liked Katherine, chaperoned her to certain smart dances, whither Philip also was invited, and, upon two glorious oc- casions, they shared a box with her at a winter season of German Opera at Covent Garden. They saw the Drury Lane pantomime and Mr. Martin Harvey and one of Mr. Hall Caine's melodramas and a very interesting play by Sir Arthur (then Mr.) Pinero. They saw the King driving out in his carriage and the Queen driving out in hers. It was a wild and delirious time. Katherine had always had too many duties at home to consider London very thor- oughly, and Philip had been away for so long that every- thing in London was exciting to him. They spoke very little; they went, with their eyes wide open, their hearts beating very loudly, side by side, up and down the town, 134 THE GREEN MIREOR and the town smiled upon them because they were so young, so happy, and so absurdly confident. Catherine was confident because she could see no reason for being otherwise. She knew that it sometimes happened that married people did not get on well together, but it v/as ridiculous to suppose that that could be the case with herself and Philip. She knew that, just at present, some members of her family did not care very greatly for Philip, but that was because they did not know him. She knew that a year seemed a long time to wait, but it was a very short period compared with a whole married lifetime. How anyone so clever, so fine of soul, so wise in his knowledge of men and things could come to love anyone so ordinary as herself she did not know — but that had been in God's hands, and she left it there. There was a thing that began now to happen to Katherine of which she herself was only very dimly perceptive. She began to be aware of the living, actual participation in her life of the outside, abstract world. It was simply this — that, because so wonderful an event had transformed her own history, so also to everyone whom she saw, she felt that some- thing wonderful must have happened. It came to more than this; she began now to be aware of London as something alive and perceptive in the very heart of its bricks and mortar, something that knew exactly her history and was watching to see what would come of it. She had always been concerned in the fortunes of those immediately about her — in the villages of Garth, in all her Trenchard relations — but they had filled her world. ISTow she could not go out of the Westminster house without wondering — about the two old maids in black bonnets who walked up and down Barton Street, about a tall gentleman with mutton-chop whiskers and a white bow, whom she often saw in Dean's Yard, about a large woman with a tiny dog and painted eyebrows, about the young man with the bread, the young man with the milk, the very trim young man with the post, KATHEEINE IN LOVE 135 the very fat young man with the butcher's cart, the two smart nursemaids with the babies of the idle rich, who were always together and deep in whispered conversation; the policeman at the right corner of the Square, who was friendly and human, and the policeman at the left corner who was not ; the two young men in perfect attire and attache cases who always lounged down Barton Street about six o'clock in the evening with scorn for all the world at the corners of their mouths, the old man with a brown muf- fler who sold boot laces at the corner of Barton Street, and the family with the barrel-organ who came on Friday morn- ings (man once been a soldier, woman pink shawl, baby in a basket), a thick-set, grave gentleman who must be some- body's butler, because his white shirt was so stiff and his cheeks blue-black from shaving £O often, a young man al- ways in a hurry and so untidy that, until he came close to her, Katherine thought he must be Henry ... all those figures she had known for years and years, but they had been only figures, they had helped to make the pattern in the carpet, shapes and splashes of colour against the grey. Now they were suddenly alive! They had, they must have, histories, secrets, triumphs, defeats of a most thrilling order ! She would like to have told them of her own amaz- ing, stupendous circumstances, and then to have invited their confidences. The world that had held before some fifty or sixty lives pulsated now with millions. But there was more than that before her. Whereas she had always, because she loved it, given to Garth and the country around it a con- scious, individual existence, London had been to her simply four walls with a fire and a window. From the fire there came heat, from the window a view, but the heat and the view were made by man for man's convenience. Had man not been, London was not. . . . Garth had breathed and stormed, threatened and loved before Man's spirit had been created. Now, although as yet she did not recognise it, she began 136 THE GREEN MIRROR to be aware of London's presence — as though from some hidden corner, from long ago some stranger had watched her; now, because the room was lit, he was revealed to her. She was not, as yet, at all frightened by her knowledge, but even in quiet Westminster there were doorways, street corners, trees, windows, chimneys, houses, set and square and silent, that perceived her coming and going — "Turn — te turn— Tat— Tat— Tat . . . Tat— Tat— Tat— Turn— te — turn. . . . "We know all about it, Katherine Trenchard — We know what's going to happen to you, but we can't tell you — We're older and wiser, much older and much, much wiser than vou are — Tat — Tat — Tat. . . ." t/ She was so happy that London could not at present dis- turb her, but when the sun was suddenly caught behind black clouds, when a whirr of rain came slashing down from nowhere at all, when a fog caught with its yellow hand Lon- don's throat and squeezed it, when gusts of dust rose from the streets in little clouds as though the horses were kick- ing their feet, when a wind, colder than snow came, blow- ing from nowhere, on a warm day, Katherine needed Philip, clung to him, begged him not to leave her . . . she had never, in all her life, clung to anyone before. But this remains that, during these weeks, she found him perfect. She liked nothing better than his half-serious, half- humorous sallies at himself. "You've got to buck me up, Katherine — keep me from flopping about, you know. Until I met you no one had any real influence on me — never in all my days. !N"ow you can do anything with me. Tell mo when I do anything hateful, and scold me as often as i/O / vou can. Look at me with the eves of Aunt A<™ie if vou t/ i/ OO «/ can — she sees me without any false colouring. I'm not a hero — far from it — but I can be anything if you love me enough." "Love him enough !" Had anyone ever loved anyone be- fore as she loved him ? She was not, to any ordinary ob- / *> •/ KATHEBINE IN LOVE 137 server, very greatly changed. Quietly and with all the matter-of-fact half-serious, half-humorous common-sense she went about her ordinary daily affairs. Young Seymour came to tea, and she laughed at him, gave him teacake, and asked him about the latest novel just as she had always done. Mr. Seymour had come expecting to see love's candle lit for the benefit of his own especial genius. He was greatly disappointed, but also, because he hated Mark, gratified. I don't believe she loves him a bit," he said afterwards. He came in while I was there, and she didn't colour up or anything. Didn't show anything, and I'm pretty observant. She doesn't love him, and I'm jolly glad — I can't stand the a a- man.' But those who were near her knew. They felt the heat, they watched the colour, of the pure, unfaltering flame. Old Trenchard, the Aunts, Millie, Henry, her mother, even George Trenchard felt it. "I always knew," said Millie, "that wlieii love came to Katherine it would be terrible". She wrote that in a diary that she kept. Mrs. Trenchard said nothing at all. During those weeks Katherine was, for the first time in her life, unaware of her mother. The afternoon of the Christmas Eve of that year was never afterwards forgotten by Katherine. She had been buy- ing last desperate additions to Christmas presents, had fought in the shops and been victorious ; then, seeing through the early dusk the lights of the Abbey, she slipped in at the great door, found a seat near the back of the nave, and re- membered that always, at this hour, on Christmas Eve, a Carol Service was held. The service had not yet begun, and a hush, with strange rhythms and pulsations in it, as though some phantom conductor were leading a phantom orchestra, filled the huge space. A flood of people, dim and very silent, spread from wall to wall. Far away, candles fluttered, trembled and flung strange lights into the web of shadow that seemed to swing and stir as though driven by 138 THE GREEN MIEEOR some wind. Katherine sank into a happy, dreamy bewilder- ment. The heat of the building after the cold, frosty air, some old scent of candles and tombstones and ancient walls, the consciousness of utter, perfect happiness carried her into a state that was half dream, half reality. She closed her eyes, and soon the voices from very far away rose and fell with that same phantom, remotely inhuman urgency. A boy's voice that struck, like a dart shot by some heavenly archer, at her heart, awoke her. This was "Good King Wenceslaus". A delicious pleasure filled her: her eyes flooded with tears and her heart beat triumphantly. aOh ! how happy I am ! And I realise it — I 'know that I can never be happier again than I am now !" The carol ceased. After a time, too happy for speech, she went out. In Dean's Yard the snow, with blue evening shadows upon it, caught light from the sheets of stars that tossed and twinkled, stirred and were suddenly immovable. The Christ- mas bells were ringing: all the lights of the houses in the Yard gathered about her and protected her. What stars there were ! What beauty ! What silence ! She stood, for a moment, taking it in, then, with a little shiver of delight, turned homewards. CHAPTEK II MRS. TRENCHARD MILLIE, like many of the Trenchard ladies before her, kept a diary. She had kept it now for three years, and it had not during that time, like the diaries of other young ladies, died many deaths and suffered many resur- rections, but had continued with the utmost regularity and discipline. This regularity finds its explanation in the fact that Millie really was interested in other people as well as in herself, was sometimes surprised at her cleverness and in turn suspicious of it — in fact, she knew as much about the world as most girls of eighteen who have been "finished" in Paris: she thought that she knew more than she did, and was perfectly determined to know a great deal more than she thought she knew. These were some entries : "Dec. 6th. Tried on the new white silk, but it won't do even now — too tight and makes me skimpy — Refused to let mother come with me this time. Took Aunt Betty in- stead, and we saw a peach of a hat at Renee's which I'd give my eyes for, only of course I haven't got the money now with Christmas coming and everything. Aunt Betty caid it was much better wanting things you can't have, because -then you go on being excited, but that's of course absurd and just like Aunt Betty. Bought Aunt Aggie a calendar-blotter thing for Christinas which she won't like (blue leather with silver corners) but I can't help it. I'm sick of thinking what to get her, and she won't be contented whatever it is. Meanwhile, in the after- 139 140 THE GKEEN MIRROR noon: the sensation of a lifetime — All sitting in the draw- ing-room, waiting for tea. When In bursts Henry with the wild news that Katie's engaged herself to Philip Mark. We all turned blue — I'd like to have been someone outside and seen us. Xo one had really suspected it. I hadn't myself — • although one might have, I suppose, if one had watched more closely. It's very exciting, and if Katie's happy I don't care about anything else. At least I do. It was so lovely coining back from Paris and having her all to oneself. We understand one another so much better than any of the others do. I'm the only one in the family who really knows her. I never thought of her as being married, which was silly, I suppose. It's funny to think of her liking a man, whom she's only just seen, better than all of us. It wouldn't be funny with most people, but Katharine's so quiet and so steady. It all depends on what lies like. Finished 'La Faute de 1'abbe Mouret'. Loved it. Downstairs I'm reading 'Sesame and Lilies' — well-written but awfully silly. Dec. 9th. Dreary day buying presents with mother at the Stores. Why she will go there I can't think, and she takes it like a week on the Riviera or a box at the opera. She says nothing about Philip — not a word. He dined last night, and was most tactful. I never saw anyone so de- termined to make us all devoted to him, but he's got a difficult business with Aunt Aggie and mother. I like him, and have a kind of idea that I understand him better than any of the others do. He's certainly not the God that Kath- erine thinks him — and he knows he isn't. He's a little uncomfortable about it, I think. He's certainly very much in love with her. Letter from Louise Pouge — She's engaged — to no one very particular. She's younger than I am. — and prettier — lots. Spoke to Henry about clean handkerchiefs. He's really incredible at his age. Philip seems to influence him though. That may do something. Dec. 13th. Dismal day. Out of sorts and cross. Dread- MRS. TEE1STCHARD 141 fully restless. I don't know why. It's all wrong this Christ- I/ V O mas, not being down at Garth and Katherine so occupied. On days like these I have terrible scruples about myself. I suppose I am terribly conceited really — and yet I don't know. There are plenty of people I admire ever so much more than myself. I suppose it's seeing Katherine so happy that makes me restless. It must be nice to have anyone as devoted as that to you. . . . I've always been very cynical about being in love, but when one watches it, quite close, with anyone as good as Katherine . . . anyway it's been a beastly day, and Aunt Aggie went on like an old crow at dinner. I wish I knew what mother was feeling about it all — she's so quiet. Dec. Ilili. Had a long talk with Philip this evening. I must sav I liked him — he was so modest about himself. He i/ said that he wished he were a little more as Katherine thinks he is, and that he's going to try to be. I said that's all right so long as he made Katherine happy and didn't take her right away from us all. He said that he would do any- thing to make mother like him, and did I think that she liked him better now ? I said that I was sure that she did — but I'm not sure really. It's impossible to know what mother thinks. Katherine came in whilst we were talking. Afterwards, I don't know why, I felt afraid somehow. Katie's so sure. I know I'd never be sure of anybody, least of all anvone in love with me. But then I know so much €/ more about men than Katie does. And I'm sure Philip knows lots more about women than Katie thinks. Katie and mother are so alike in some ways. They're both as obstinate as anything. Such a lovely afternoon out with the Swin- tons — Snow in the Green Park, sparkling all over and the air like after you've eaten peppermints. Lady Perrot asked me to go with them to New Year's supper at the Savoy. Hope I'll be allowed. Dec. 23rd. Had a walk with Katie — first walk had alone since her engagement. She was so happy that she was almost 142 THE GREEN MIRROR — a beastly word — frislcy. Katie frisky ! We're miles away from one another just now, and that's the truth. I suppose one must simply wait until this period's passed away. But supposing it never passes away? Supposing she disappears altogether — from all of us. At any rate, what can one say ? I like Philip, and can honestly say so, hut I don't think him the angel Gabriel. Not that Katie at present cares, in the least, what one thinks — she doesn't wait to hear. She is making no plans, thinking of no possible future, imagining nothing. She never had any imagination, or at any rate never used it. Perhaps she'll get some now from Philip, who has plenty — far too much. It's Ins trouble, I believe that he's always imagining something a little better than he's got, . . . We Trenchards have none. I haven't any really — it's only curiosity. Henry and I might have some if we were all very uncomfortable. But of course the whole family only keeps together because it can't imagine things being different. Are things going to be different now ? . . . Rachel Seddon came to tea. Don't like her. Thinks she owns Katie — -and Katie's let her. Went with the Aunts to the Messiah. Very long, with nice bits. Aunt Aggie had a crick in the neck, and wriggled all the time. Hope I get some money on Christmas Day or I shall be in an awful hole. Dec. 26£7i. Two pounds from father, one from grand- father, ten shillings Cousin Alice, five Aunt Grace, kettle- holder Aunt Aggie, two dozen handkerchiefs Uncle Bob, fountain-pen father, new hat mother (quite hopeless), photo- gravure 'Happy Warrior' Aunt Betty, two books 'Reuben Hallard' by Westcott (Mudie second-hand) 'Rossetti's Poems' from Henry — lovely amethyst brooch Katie (dar- ling!) two novels by Turgenieff from Philip — lots of other things. Nice day on the whole, but not quite right somehow. Wish mother didn't always look so anxious when there's a dinner party. You always expect things to happen wrong, and really MKS. TKEFCHAED 143 Rocket knows his business by this time. All of us a little forced, I think. It seemed funny not being at Garth and Philip the first person we've ever had not of the family. Aunt Sarah keeps forgetting who he is, or pretends to. I wish he didn't make up to mother quite so much. That isn't the way to make her like him. I really do understand him much better than anyone else does — mucli better than Katie. Dec. 31st. Going to the Savoy party to-night. Hope it will be fun. Xever expected mother to let me, but she's awfully sweet to me lately. She's a darling, but we're really always just a little afraid of one another. Of course I'm not out yet, so I'll have to be quiet to-night. Mother never would have dreamt of letting me go six months back. End of the year — made several resolutions. ]STot to be snappy, nor superior, nor cynical, nor selfish. That's enough for any- one to look after! Wonder what things will be like this year, and how Katie and Philip will turn out. Feel as though things will all go wrong, and yet I don't know why. Bought the hat I saw a fortnight ago. Finished 'House of Gentlefolks'. Adored it. Discussed it with Philip. Going to get all the other Turgenieffs. Think Russia must be a wonderful country. Time to dress. I know I'll just love the party. . . ." Only Mrs. Trenchard herself could say whether or no she had enjoyed this Christmas. She displayed the same busy placidity as on other occasions ; of her fears, disappoint- ments, surprises, she said nothing. The turkey was a suc- cess, the plum-pudding burnt with a proper glow, no one was ill, she had forgotten, in sending out her parcels, no single Trenchard relation — surely all was well. Her brother, Timothy, who knew her better than anyone else did, had long abandoned the penetration of her motives, aims, regrets. There had been a time when she had been almost intimate with him, then something (he never knew 144 THE GREEN MIEROE what) had driven her in more obstinately than ever upon herself. Something he had said. . . . He could point almost exactly to the day and hour. She had been a stranger to him from that moment. Her history was, however, very simple. When she had been a very, very small child she had de- cided for herself that the way to give life a real value was to fix one's affection upon someone : perhaps there had been also the fear of life as a motive, the discovery that the best way to be protected from all kinds of perils was to be so fond of someone that nothing else mattered. With a quiet, unde- monstrative but absolutely tenacious hold she attached herself to her nurse, who deserted her on the appearance of a younger sister, to her mother, who died, to her father, who was always so busy that loving him was like being devoted to a blotting pad. When she was ten years of age she went to school, and clung to a succession of older girls, who, however, found, in her lack of all demonstrations, her almost cynical remarks, her inability to give any expression whatever to her emotions, something, at first, terrifying, and afterwards merely tire- some. When she was about eighteen she discovered that the per- son to whom a woman should be properly attached was her husband. She waited then very calmly until she was twenty, when George Trenchard appeared, proposed to her, and was accepted. She took it so utterly for granted that her devo- tion to him would fill sufficiently the energy of her remaining days that it wasn't until the end of a year of married life that she discovered that, although he liked her very much, he could do quite beautifully without her, and did, indeed, for three- quarters of every day forget her altogether. ~No one, except herself, knew whether that discovery hurt her. She, of course, said nothing to anyone about it. She waited for the arrival of her children. Katherine, Henry and Mildred came, and at last it seemed that Mrs. Trenchard's ship had come into port. During their early years, at any rate, they clung to MRS. TRENCHABD 145 her tenaciously, did not in the least mind that she had noth- ing to say to them: they found her sure and safe and, best of all possible things in a parent, always the same. It was when Katherine was six years old that Timothy said to her one day: "Look here, Harriet, don't get so wrapt in the children that you'll never be able to unwrap yourself again. I've seen it happen dozens of times, and it always gives endless trouble later on. It's all very well now, but the time will come when they'll break away — it must come, and you'll suffer horribly unless you're ready for it. I'm not married myself, it's true, but I see all the more for that very reason." This was the speech that severed Mrs. Trenchard from her brother. She never forgot nor forgave it. She never forgave it because she could not forget it : his words were to haunt her from the moment of their utterance until the last conscious instant of her life. She had been born entirely without imagination, but she had not been born without the wish for romance. Moreover, the Faunder tradition (which is the same as the Trenchard tradition) taught her to believe that there was something enfeebling and dangerous about imagination, and that the more one thought about things not immediately within sight the less likely one was to do one's daily task with efficiency. Her longing for a romantic life therefore (that is for the justification of her own personal existence) was assisted by no private dreams nor castle-build- ing. ISTo Fauncler or Trenchard had ever built a castle in the air when there were good square manors and vicarages waiting to be constructed on good solid ground. She di- rected the whole of her passionate life towards her relations with her children, but never even to herself would she admit that she had any passionate life at all. Take away the chil- dren and there was nothing left for her except her religion ; because the loss of them would be the one tragedy that would drive her to question the justice of her God was justification of itself for her passionate determination. 146 THE GREEN MIRROR Now Timothy had said that she would lose them — well, Timothy should see. With other children, with other mothers, it might be so. God Himself should not take them from her. Nevertheless, as the children grew, the shadows of his words ever pursued her and hemmed her in. She watched, with close attention, other families, and saw that Timothy's warn- ing was justified often enough, but always she was able to find for herself some reason. The weakness of selfishness or carelessness of the parent. Not weak, nor selfish, nor careless could any watching Powers, waiting to pounce, ac- cuse her of being! When the children grew older she discovered certain things about them. Henry often annoyed her with his untidiness and strangely unjustified egotism. He always thought about himself, and yet never did anything. She liked Henry least of her children. Mildred was delightful, clever, the "show child", but for that very reason would in all probability be, afterwards, the most restless of them. As the two girls grew Mrs. Tren- chard told herself that, perhaps, Millie would have to be sacri- ficed, and in telling herself this she implied that if she would only, when the time came, allow Millie without a murmur to depart, the Gods would be satisfied with that and Kath- erine would remain. It came to this, that by the time that Katherine was twelve she was the centre of her mother's existence. Mil- dred and Henry would be held as long as it was possible to hold them, but, if the worst came, they should go. Kath- erine would always remain. . . . It seemed indeed that she would. She loved her home, her parents, her relations, Glebeshire, the whole of the Trenchard inheritance. She placed her mother first in her life, and she was able to satisfy the love in her mother's heart without saying anything about it or drawing anyone's attention towards it. She had all the qualities that her MRS. TRENCHARD 147 mother admired — sincerity, trust, common-sense, practical punctuality, moral as well as physical: above all, she took things for granted without asking endless questions, as was Henry's unfortunate habit. There grew then in the lives both of Mrs. Trenchard and Katherine a passionate affec- tion, which was never allowed by either of them to find out- ward expression. This became, behind the commonplace matter-of-fact of all their days, a kind of romantic conspiracy. Even when Katherine was still a child Mrs. Trenchard knew that the hours that they spent alone together had some strange almost incoherent quality^ something that was mixed, inex- tricably, with the high lanes, the grassy lawns, the distant strip of sea beyond the fields, the rooks in the high trees, the smell of the village shop, boot-laces, liquorice, tallow, cheese and cotton, the dark attic bedroom of Katherine's, the cries of village children beyond the garden wall, afternoon Sunday school upon hard benches under glazed lamps to the accom- paniment of the harmonium ; all the things that belonged to Garth belonged also to the love between Mrs. Trenchard and Katherine. Katherine had been first taken to the sea when she had been a very little girl ; she had been shown Rafiel and the Pirates' Cove with its cave (too small for any but very thin pirates), and the village with the cottages cut out of the rock and the sea advancing and retreating as a lazy cat stretches and withdraws its paws upon the pebbled beach. Driving home through the twilight in the high dog-cart be- hind the fat and beloved family pony, Katherine had been be- sieged with questions. What had she thought of it all ? What had she liked best ? Had it been wonderful ? She had said nothing. She was obstinately silent. At last, persecuted beyond bearing, she looked, imploringly, at her mother. Her eyes had met her mother's, and, as complete understanding passed between them, it seemed that they made, there and then, a compact of mutual help and protection that was never afterwards to be broken. Mrs. Trenchard had never, never been known to mention scenery, sunsets or buildings, except 148 THE GREEN MIRROR for strictly practical reasons. She would say: "Come in, children, you'll catch cold, the sun's setting",, or "I dorit think we'll have rain to-day. There's not a cloud", or "It's so hot, there's quite n mist. I hope there'll be enough straw- berries and cream for everyone." That was her attitude, and vet she loved Glebeshire, everv stone and tree, y/ith an un- *-* / e/ faltering and unarguing devotion. She never said "Glebe- shire is the loveliest spot in the world". But only : "Oh ! you've never been to Glebeshire ? You don't know the Clar- ence Faunders then ? They're only five miles from us", or "Yes. We live in Glebeshire — a little village not far from Polchester. We're very lucky in our clergyman, a Mr. Smart, one of the Smarts, etc." Moreover, she never when she was quite alone said to herself: "Oh! what a heavenly day!" or "How lovely the new leaves are", or "Look at the primroses !" She only said to herself: "Lucy Cartwright's Annie has got to have that ointment", or "I must tell Rebekah about the poor Curtises. She could take them the things." ISTevertheless, when she discovered that Katherine cared for Glebeshire with a love as deep as her own, how happy she was ! How firmly that discovery bound them together I For them both that journey twice a year from London to Garth was as exciting as though they had never taken it be- before. The stations, whose names were like the successive wrappers that enclose a splendid present, Rasselas, the little windy station where they changed from the London Express into the halting, stumbling little train that carried them to- wards the sea ; then Stoep in Roselands, tiniest station of all, with the sea smell blowing across the dark fields, the carriage with its lights and Jacob, the coachman, the drive through the twilight lanes, the gleaming white gates, the house itself and old Rebekah on the doorstep . . . yes, of all these things was the love between Mrs. Trenchard and her daughter made. Most wonderful of all was it that, with Katherine, Mrs. Trenchard never knew a moment's awkwardness or embar- rassment. With everyone else in the world and, perhaps MRS. TRENCHAKD 149 especially with her own family, Mrs. Trenchard was often awkward and embarrassed, although no one but herself was aware of it. Of this embarrassment Mrs. Trenchard had a horrible dread : it was to her as though she were suddenly lifted off her feet by a giant hand and held dangling: she felt that all the world must see how her skirts blew in the wind. With Katherine she was always safe : she grew, most urgently, to depend upon this safety. Then, as the years passed she felt that she might, with justice, consider Kath- erine secure. Katherine seemed to have no interest in young men : already she adopted a rather motherly attitude towards them and, perhaps because Henry was the young man im- mediately before her, considered them rather helpless, rather clumsy, rather unwieldy and ungainly. She was always kind but a little satirical in her relations to the other sex: young men were, perhaps, afraid of her. Mrs. Trenchard did, of course, consider the possibility of Katherine's marriage, but, if that ever occurred, it would be, she knew, with someone in the family, someone like them- selves, who would live near by, who would worship Kath- erine but never interfere with her, who would give her children, to whom. Mrs. Trenchard could be a delightful grandmother. This surrender the Gods might demand — it would need more than such a marriage to separate, now, Katherine from her mother. Mrs. Trenchard, like all un- imaginative people, relied very strongly upon little facts and well-accustomed places and familiar family relations. She did not believe that Victoria Street would walk away or that the old woman (Mrs. Pengello, an ancient widow with a pen- sion, two granddaughters and a cast in her eye) at the Garth post office would appear one morning rr> ^ radiant young beauty, or that her brother Timothy would go en to the music halls. Her world was thus a place of security, and Kath- erine was one of the most secure things in it. "Ah ! Tim- othy, you're wrong after all," she would sometimes, in the watches of the night, think to herself. "Nothing can take 150 THE GEEEN MIEEOR Katherine from me now. You may be as right as you like about Millie and Henry. Katherine is enough. . . ." She had, during these last years, been wrapped in with a strange, placid content : Millie had been at school in Paris : there was nothing inside the Trenchard fortress that spoke of the outside world. No secret spirit ever whispered to Mrs. Trenchard: "Are you not being selfish in keeping your daughter ? You will die some day, and then she will have a lonely old maid's life when she might have been so happy. The children's lives are their own. What right have you to Katherine's life and ambitions and love? Would you, in vour youth, have given up your future for your parents? Why should she ?" There was nothing that Mrs. Trenchard desired more than Katherine's happiness. If Katherine had not loved her she would have let her go, but now . . . Katherine's life was bound up with hers so tightly that nothing, nothing could part them. . . . Then there came a night of fog, a stranger bowing in the doorway, and all the old days were dead. Mrs. Trenchard was still stunned, the fog was yet about her eyes, and in her heart was a dread that had not yet found its voice nor driven her to determine what she would do. ... Meanwhile there was no one in the world who knew her. She did not know herself. Until now there had been in her life no crisis strong enough to force open that realisation. One morning early in January Mrs. Trenchard said to Katherine at breakfast: "Will you come to the Stores with me this afternoon, Katherine ? I have to buy some hot-water bottles and one or two other things. Two of them leak badly . . . some hot-water bottles . . . and I'd like you to help me." "I'm lunching with Rachel, mother," Katherine said. "But I'll be back by three if that's time enough." "Three o'clock. Very well, dear. They oughtn't to leak MRS. TRENCHARD 151 -we've had them quite a short time. Shall I meet you there ?" "No. I'll come back. We might miss there. I'll be back by three." At ten minutes past three in a large rather confused hat with a black bird and white feathers Mrs. Trenchard was seated waiting in the drawing-room. The fire had had coal poured upon it by Rocket, and it was very black: the room was cold and dark, and Mrs, Trenchard, feeling like an un- welcome guest in her own house, shivered. At twenty min- utes past three Mrs. Trenchard began to be afraid that there had been an accident. Katherine was always so punctual. Millie came in. "Dear mother, what on earth !" "I'm waiting for Katherine. She was to be back at three from Rachel Seddon's. We are — were — going to the Stores. You don't think there can have been an accident ?" "Katherine! Why, I saw her twenty minutes ago. I've just come back from Lady Carloes. Katie was at Hyde Park Corner with Philip." "Philip !" Mrs. Trenchard got up, took off one black glove, then put it on again. She looked at the clock. "Will you come to the Stores with me, Millie? I've got to get some hot-water bottles and some other things. . . . Two of ours leak. . . . I'd like you to help me." Millie looked once at the clock, and her mother saw her. Then Millie said : "Of course I will. We won't be very long, will we?" "Why, no, dear," said Mrs. Trenchard, who would have been happy to spend a week at the Stores had she the op- portunity. "Quite a little time." They set off together. Millie was not yet of such an age that she could disguise her thoughts. She was wondering about Katherine, and Mrs. Trenchard knew that this was so. Mrs. Trenchard always 152 THE GEEEN MIEEOE walked through the streets of London as a trainer in the company of his lions. Anything might happen, and one's life was not safe for a moment, but a calm, resolute de- meanour did a great deal, and, if trouble came, one could always use the whip : the whip was the Trenchard name. To- day, however, she gave no thought to London : she was very gentle and kind to Millie — almost submissive and humble. This made Millie very uncomfortable. "I'm rather foolish about the Stores, I'm afraid. I know several places where you can get better hot-water bottles and cheaper. But they know me at the Stores now." Once she said : "I hope, Millie dear, I'm not keeping you from anything. We shall be home by half-past four." In exchange for these two little remarks Millie talked a great deal, and the more she talked the more awkward she seemed. She was very unhappy about her mother, and she wished that she could comfort her, but she knew her so little and had been alwavs on such careless terms with her that i/ now she had no intuition about her. "What is she thinking? ... I know Katherine has hurt her terribly. She oughtn't to wear a hat like that : it doesn't suit her a bit. Why isn't it I who have forgotten, and Katie here instead to console her? Only then she wouldn't want consolation. . . ." As they walked up the steps of the Stores they were stared at by a number of little dogs on chains, who all seemed to assert their triumphant claims on somebody's especial affec- tions. The little dogs stirred Mrs, Trenchard's unhappi- ness, without her knowing why. All down Victoria Street she had been thinking to herself: "Katherine never forgot before — never. It was only this morning — if it had even been yesterday — but this morning! Millie doesn't understand, and she didn't want to come — Katie. ..." She walked slowly into the building, and was at once re- ceived by that friendly, confused smell of hams and medicines which is the Stores' note of welcome. Lights shone, warmth MRS. TRENCHARD 153 eddied in little gusts of hot air from corner to corner : there was much conversation, but all of a very decent kind : ladies, not very grand ones and not very poor ones, but comfortable, motherly, housekeeping ladies were everywhere to be seen. No wonder, surely, that Mrs. Trenchard loved the Stores ! Here was everything gathered in from the ends of the earth that was solid and sound and real. Here were no extrava- gances, no decadencies, no flowing creations with fair out- sides and no heart to them, nothing foreign nor degenerate. However foreign an article might be before it entered the Stores, once inside those walls it adopted itself at once to the claims of a Cathedral City — even the Eastern carpets, stained though their past lives might be with memories of the Harem, recognised that their future lay along the floor of a Bishop's study, a Major's drawing-room or the dining-room of a coun- try rectory. If ever Mrs. Trenchard was alarmed by memo- ries of foreign influences, of German invasions, or Armenian atrocities, she had only to come to the Stores to be entirely re- assured. It would be better for our unbalanced and hysterical alarmists did they visit the Stores more fre- quently. . . . But frequent visits had bred in Mrs. Trenchard a yet warmer intimacy. Although she had never put her feeling into words, she was determined now that the Stores was main- tained solelv in the Trenchard and Faunder interests. So */ pleasant and personally submissive had the young men and young women of the place been to her all these years, that she now regarded them with very nearly the personal benevolence that she bestowed upon her own Rebekah, Rocket, Jacob and so on. She felt that only Trenchards and Faunder s could have produced an organisation whose spirit was so entirely sprung from their own views and observances. She did not defend or extol those views. There simply they were! and out of them the Stores were born. She paid her call here, there- fore, rather as a Patroness visits a Hospital in which she is interested — with no conceit or false pride, but with a mater- 154 THE GKEEN MIEEOK nal anxiety that everything should be well and prosperous. Everything always was well and prosperous. . . . She was a happy Patroness! "That's a splendid ham !" were invariably her first words, and "I do like the way they arrange things here/7 her sec- ond. She could have wandered, very happily, all day from compartment to compartment, stopping continually to ob- serve, to touch, to smile, to blow her nose (being moved, very often, quite emotionally) to beam happily upon the custo- mers and then to turn, with a little smile of intimacy, to the young men in frock coats and shiny hair, as though she would say : "We've got a good crowd to-day. Everyone seems com- fortable . . . but how can they help it when everything is so beautifully done ?" Her chief pride and happiness found its ultimate crown in the furniture department. Here, hung as it was some- where up aloft, with dark bewildering passages starting into infinity on every side of it, was the place that her soul truly loved. She could gaze all day upon those sofas and chairs. Those wonderful leather couches of dark red and dark blue, so solid, so stern in their unrelenting opposition to flighty half-and-half, so self-supporting and self-satisfying, so as- sured of propriety and comfort and solid value for your money. She would sink slowly into a huge leather arm- chair, and from her throne smile upon the kind gentleman who washed his hands in front of her. "And how much is this one ?" "Nine pounds, eight and sixpence, ma'am." "Keally. Nine pounds, eight and sixpence. It's a splen- did chair." "It is indeed, ma'am. We've sold more than two dozen of this same article in this last fortnight. A great demand just now." aAnd so there ought to be — more than two dozen ! Well, I'm not surprised — an excellent chair." "Perhaps we can send it for you ? Or you prefer — ?" MES. TBENCHAKD 155 "No, thank you. Not to-day. But I must say that it's wonderful for the money. That sofa over there — " Up here, in this world of solid furniture, it seemed that England was indeed a country to be proud of! Mrs. Tren- chard would have made no mean Britannia, seated in one of the Stores' arm-chairs with a Stores' curtain-rod for her trident ! Upon this January afternoon she found her way to the furniture department more swiftly than was usual with her. The Stores seemed remote from her to-day. As she passed the hams, the chickens, the medicines and powders, the petti- coats and ribbons and gloves, the books and the stationery, the cut-glass and the ironware, the fancy pots, the brass, the Chinese lanterns, the toys, the pianos and the gramophones, the carpets and the silver, the clocks and the pictures, she could only be dimly aware that to-day these things were not for her, that all the treasures of the earth might be laid at her feet and she would not care for them, that all the young men and young women in England might bow and smile be- fore her and she would have no interest nor pleasure in them. She reached the furniture department. She sank down in the red-leather arm-chair. She said, with a little sigh : "She has never forgotten before !" This was, considering her surroundings and the moment of its expression, the most poignant utterance of her life. Millie's chief emotion, until this moment, had been one of intense boredom. The Stores seemed to her, after Paris, an impossible anachronism; she could not understand why it was not instantly burnt up and destroyed, and all its sol- emn absurdities cast, in dirt and ashes, to the winds. She followed her mother with irritation, and glances of cynical contempt were flung by her upon the innocent ladies who were buying and chatting and laughing together. Then she remembered that her mother was in trouble, and she was bowed down with self-accusation for a hard heartless girl 156 THE GREEN MIRROR who thought of no one but herself. Her moods always thus followed swiftly one upon another. When, in the furniture department, she heard that for- lorn exclamation she wanted to take her mother's hand, but was shy and embarrassed. "I expect Katie had to go with Philip. . . . Something she had to do, and perhaps it only kept her a moment or two and she got back just after we'd left. We didn't wait long enough for her. She's been waiting there, I expect, all this time for us." Mrs. Trenchard's cheek flushed and her eyes brightened. "Why, Millie, that's most likely! We'll go back at once . . . that's most likely. . . . We'll go back at once." "This is a very cheap article/' said the young man, "or if Madame would prefer a chair with— "No, no," said Mrs. Trenchard quite impatiently. "Not to-day. Not to-day, thank you." "There are the hot-water bottles," said Millie. "Oh, of course. . . . I want some hot-water bottles. Ours leak . . . three of them. ..." "In the rubber department, Madam, first to the right, sec- ond to the left. . . ." But Mrs. Trenchard hurried through the hot-water bottles in a manner utterly foreign to her. "Thank you. I'm sure they're very nice. They won't leak, you say? How much? . . . Thank you . . . no, I prefer these. ... If you're sure they won't leak. . . . Yes, my number is 2157. . . . Thank you." Outside in Victoria Street she said : "I might have given her until quarter to four. I daresay she's been waiting all this time." But Millie for the first time in all their days together was angry with Katherine. She said to herself: "She's going to forget us all like this now. We aren't, any of us, going to count for anything. Six months ago she would have died rather than hurt mother. . MRS. TRENCHARD 157 And behind her anger with Katherine was anger with herself because she seemed so far away from her mother, because she was at a loss as to the right thing to do, because she had said that she had seen Philip with Katherine. "You silly idiot !" she thought to herself. "Why couldn't you have kept your mouth shut ?" Mrs. Trenchard spoke no word all the way home. Katherine was not in the house when they returned. Millie went upstairs, Mrs, Trenchard stared at the desolate drawing-room. The fire was dead, and the room, in spite of its electric light, heavy and dark. Mrs. Trenchard looked at the reflection of her face in the mirror ; with both hands she pushed her hat a little, then, with a sudden ges- ture, took it off, drawing out the pins slowly and staring at it again. Mrs. Trenchard glanced at the clock, and then slowly went out, holding her hat in her hand, advancing with that trailing, half-sleepy movement that was peculiarly hers. She did then what she had not done for many years : she went to her husband's study. This hour before tea he always insisted was absolutely his own : no one, on any pretext, was ever to disturb him. To-day, cosily, with a luxurious sense that the whole world had been made for him, and made for him exactly as he liked it, he was, with a lazy pencil, half- writing, half-thinking, making little notes for an essay on William Hazlitt. As his wife entered he was reading: "How fine it is to enter some old town, walled and turreted, just at the approach of nightfall, or to come to some straggling village, with the lights streaming through the surrounding gloom; and then, after enquiring for the best entertainment the place affords, to take one's ease at one's inn ! These eventful moments in our lives' history are too precious, too full of solid, heartfelt happiness to be frittered and dribbled away in imperfect sym- pathy. I would have them all to myself, and drain them to the last drop." 158 THE GREEN MIRROR How thoroughly George Trenchard agreed with that. How lucky for him that he was able to defend himself from so much of that same "imperfect sympathy". Not that he did not love his fellow-creatures, far from it, but it was pleasant to be able to protect oneself from their too constant, their too eager ravages. Had he been born in his beloved Period, then he fancied that he might, like magnificent Sir Walter, have built his Castle and entertained all the world, but in this age of telephones and motorcars one was absolutely compelled. . . . He turned Hazlitt's words over on his tongue with a little happy sigh of regret, and then was conscious that his wife was standing by the door. "Hullo !" he cried, starting up. "Is anything the matter ?" It was so unusual for her to be there that he stared at her large, heavy figure as though she had been a stranger. Then he jumped up, laughing, and the dark blue Hazlitt fell on to the carpet. "Well, my dear," he said, "tea-time?" She came trailing across the room, and stood beside him near the fire. "No c . ." she said, "not yet . . . George. . . . You look very cosy here," she suddenly added. "I am," he answered. He looked down at the Hazlitt, and her eyes followed his glance. "What have you been do- ing?" "I've been to the Stores." "Why, of course," he said, chaffing her. "You live there. And what have you been buying this time?" "Hot-water bottles." "Well, that's exciting !" "Ours leaked. . . . Two of them, and we'd had them a very short time. I took Millie with me !" "Very good for her. Clear some of her Parisian fancies." There was a pause then, and he bent forward as though he would pick up the book, but he pulled himself up again. 'Katherine's been out with Philip all the afternoon." "IT. MRS. TRENCHARD 159 He smiled one of his radiant, boyish smiles. "She's happy, isn't she ? It does one good to see her. She deserves it too if anyone in this world does. I like him — more and more. He's seen the world, anci has got a head on his shoulders. And he isn't conceited, not in the least. He's charming to her, and I think he'll make her a very good husband. That wras a lucky thing for us his coming along, because Katherine was sure to marry someone, and she might have set her heart on an awful fellow. You never know in these days." "Ah! I don't think so," said Mrs. Trenchard, nervously turning her hat over in her hands, "that wouldn't be like Katie at all." "JSTo, well, perhaps it wouldn't," said George cheerfully. There was another pause, and now he bent right down, picked up the book, grunting a little, then stood, turning over the pages. "Fin getting fat," he said, "good for all of us when we get down to Garth." "George ..." she began and stopped. "Well, my dear." He put his hand on her shoulder, and then as though embarrassed by the unexpected intimacy that his action produced, withdrew it. "Don't you think we might go out to the theatre one eve- ning— theatre or something?" "What! With the children? Family party! Splendid idea!" "No, I didn't mean with the children — exactly. Just you and I alone. Dine somewhere — have an evening together." It was no use to pretend that he was not surprised. She saw his astonishment. "Why, of course — if you'd really care about it. Mostly pantomimes just now — but I daresay we could find something. Good idea. Good idea." "Xow that — now that — the children are beginning to 160 THE GEEEN MIEEOE marry and go off by themselves. Why, I thought . . . you understand. . . ." "Of course. Of course/' he said again. "Any night you like. You remind me. . . ." He whistled a gay little tune, and turned over the pages of the Hazlitt, reading sentences here and there. "Tea in a minute ? . . ." he said gaily. "Just got a line or two more to finish. Then I'll be with you." She looked at him as though she would say something more: she decided, however, that she would not, and trailed away. Eeturning to the drawing-room, she found Katherine standing there. Katherine's cheeks were flushed and her eyes sparkled : she was wearing a little black hat with red berries, and the black velvet ribbon round her neck had a diamond brooch in it that Philip had given her. Eocket was bend- ing over the fire : she was laughing at him. When she saw her mother she waved her hand. "Mother, darling — what kind of an afternoon have you had ? I've had the loveliest time. I lunched at EacheFs, and there, to my immense surprise, was Philip. I hadn't the least idea he was coming. Not the slightest. We weren't to have met to-day at all. Just Lord John, Philip, Eachel and I. Then we had such a walk. Philip and I. Hyde Park Corner, right through the Park, Marble Arch, then through Eegent's Park all the way up Primrose Hill — took a 'bus home again. Never enjoyed anything so much. You've all been out too, because here's the fire dead. I've been telling Eocket what I think of him. Haven't I, Eocket ? . . . Where are the others? Millie, Aunt Aggie. It's tea- time." "Yes, dear, it is," said Mrs. Trenchard. It was incredible, Katherine was utterly unconscious. She remembered nothing. Mrs. Trenchard looked at Eocket. MES. TEENCHAED 161 "That'll do, Eocket. That's enough. We'll have tea at once." Eocket went out. She turned to her daughter. "I'm glad you've enjoyed your afternoon, dear. I couldn't think what had happened to you. I waited until half-past three." "Waited ?" "Yes — to go to the Stores. You said at breakfast that you'd come with me — that you'd be back by three. I waited until half-past. ... It was quite all right, dear. Millie went with me. She had seen you — you and Philip at Hyde Park Corner — so, of course, I didn't wait any longer." Katherine stared at her mother : the colour slowly left her face and her hand went up to her cheeks with a gesture of dismay. "Mother! . . . How could I!" "It didn't matter, dear, in the slightest . . . dear me, no. We went, Millie and I, and got the hot-water bottles, very good and strong ones, I think, although they said they couldn't positively guarantee them. You never can tell, apparently, with a hot-water bottle." Katherine's eyes, now, were wide and staring with dis- tress. "How could I possibly have forgotten? It was talking about it at breakfast when Aunt Aggie too was talking about something, and I got confused, I suppose. ISTo, I haven't any excuse at all. It was seeing Philip unexpectedly. . . ." She stopped abruptly, realising that she had said the worst thing possible. "You mustn't let Philip, dear, drive everything out of your head," Mrs. Trenchard said, laughing. "We have some claim on you until you are married — then, of course. . . ." The colour mounted again into Katherine's face. "No, mother, you mustn't say that," she answered in a low voice, as though she was talking to herself. "Philip makes no difference — none at all. I'd have forgotten in any 1G2 THE GREEN MIRROR case, I'm afraid, because we talked about it at breakfast when I was thinking about Aunt Aggie. It was nothing to do with Philip — it wras my fault absolutely. I'll never forgive myself." All the joy had left her eyes. She was very grave: she knew that, slight as the whole incident was, it marked a real crisis in her relations, not only with her mother, but with the whole house. Perhaps during all these weeks, she had for- gotten them all, and they had noticed it and been hurt by it. She accused herself so bitterly that it seemed that nothing could be bad enough for her. She felt that, in the future, she could not show her mother enough attention and affection. But now, at this moment, there was nothing to be done. Millie would have laughed, hugged her mother and forgotten in five minutes that there had been any crime. But, in this, Kath- erine's character resembled, exactly, her mother's. ;'Really, Katie, it didn't matter. I'm glad you liked the walk. And now it's tea-time. It always seems to be tea- time. There's so much to do." They were then, both of them, conscious that Aunt Aggie had come in and was smiling at them. They wished intensely to fling into the pause some conversation that would be trivial and unimportant. They could think of nothing to say. . . . "Why, Katherine," said Aunt Aggie, "where have you been ? Millie says she's been to the Stores. . . . You said at breakfast . . ." "I was kept . . ." said Katherine sharply, and left the room. "I'll be down in five minutes, Aggie," said Mrs. Trenchard. "Tea time—" Her sister watched her as she went out, carrying her hat in her hand. Half-way upstairs she saw Henry, who was half-tumbling, half-sliding from step to step : he was evidently hurrying, in his confused way, to do something that he had forgotten to do or to finish some task that he should long ago have completed. MRS. TREXCHARD 163 "Henry," she said, "I wonder whether — ' "Right, mother," he called back to her. "I must— the rest of his sentence was swallowed by distance. She turned and looked after him, then walked through the long pas- sages to her room. She entered it, closed the door, and stood by her dressing-room staring in front of her. There was com- plete, intense silence here, and all the things lay about the room, as though waiting for her to address them. "George, Millie, Henry, Katherine . . . Millie didn't want to go ... Katherine. . . ." On her table was a list of articles, the week's washing — her own list. Handkerchiefs — 1 2 . Stockings — 8 pairs. She looked at it without seeing it, then with a sudden, vindictive, passionate movement tore it in half, and then those halves into smaller pieces, tore the smaller pieces into little shreds of paper that fluttered in the air and then fell on to the floor at her feet. CHAPTER III LIFE AND HENRY PHILIP was entirely happy during the first days of his engagement — so happy that he assured himself that he had never before known what happiness was. When, how- ever, this glorious state had continued for four or five weeks he was aware that that most sensitive and unreliable of his spiritual possessions, his conscience, was being attacked. He was aware that there was something that he ought to do, something that he did not want to do — he was aware that he must tell Katherine about Anna and his life with her. Now when he had said to Mr. Trenchard that his life was free of all complications and that there was nothing in it that need be hidden from the world, he was, quite honestly, convinced that that was so. His life with Anna was entirely at an end : he had done her no wrong, she owed him no grudge, he did not know that he had ever taken any especial pains in Moscow to hide his relations with her, and he did not believe that any- one there thought the worse of him for them. He had come to England with that chapter closed, eager to begin another. His only thought of Anna when he had proposed to Katherine was that this was exactly what she had intended him to do — that she would be pleased if she knew. His conscience was always at rest when he thought that everyone liked him. . . . Now he knew, quite definitely, after a month of his en- gagement to Katherine, that some of the members of the Trenchard family did not like him — No amount of his de- termination to like them could blind him to the truth of this unpleasant fact — Mrs. Trenchard did not like him, Aunt 164 LIFE AND HENRY 165 Aggie did not like him, probably Mr. Trenchard, senior, and Great-Aunt Sarah did not like him (he could not tell, be- cause they were so silent), and he was not sure whether Henry liked him or not. Therefore, in front of this alarming array of critics his conscience awoke. The other force that stirred his conscience was Katherine' s belief in him In Moscow no one had believed in anyone — anyone there, proved to be faultless, would have been, for that very reason, unpopular. Anna herself had held the most hu- morous opinion of him. (She liked Englishmen, respected their restraint and silence, but always laughed at their care for appearances.) Although he had known that his love for Katherine had sprung partly from his sense of her difference from Anna, he, nevertheless, had expected the qualities that had pleased him in the one to continue in the other. He dis- covered that Katherine trusted him utterly, that she believed, with absolute confidence, in every word that fell from his lips, and he knew that, if the old whole world came to her and told her that he had had for several years a mistress in Moscow and he denied it to her, that she would laugh at the world. This knowledge made him extremely uncomfortable. First, he tried to persuade himself that he had never had a mis- tress, that Anna had never existed, then, when that miserably failed, he told himself that he could always deny it if she asked him, then he knew that he loved her so much that he would not lie to her (this discovery pleased him). He must, he finally knew, tell her himself. . . . He told himself that he would wait a little until she believed in him less com- pletely; he must prepare her mind. He did not even now, however, consider that she would feel his confession very deeply; Anna would simply have laughed at his scruples. Meanwhile he loved her so deeply and so completely that Anna's figure was a ghost, dimly recalled from some other life. He had almost forgotten her appearance. She had a little black mole on her left cheek — or was it her right ? . . . 166 THE GREEN MIRROR Somewhere in the beginning of February he decided that he would cultivate Henry, not because he liked Henry, but because he thought that Katherine would like it — also, al- though this he did not confess to himself, because Henry was so strange and unexpected that he was half afraid of him. Of course Henry ought to be sent to one of the Universi- ties, it was absurd to keep a great, hulking boy of nineteen hanging about, wasting his own time and the time of his family, suffering no discipline and learning nothing of any value. George Trenchard had told Philip that Henry was too young for Oxford, and was to have a year of "seeing the world" before he "went up". A fine lot of seeing the world Henry was doing, slouching about the house, reading novels and sulking! Philip, in spite of his years in Russia, felt very strongly that every Englishman should be shaven clean and wear clothes from a good tailor. About men of other na- tionalities it did not matter, but smartness was expected from an Englishman. Henry, however, was in that unpleasant condition known as "sprouting." He had a little down on one cheek, apparently none on the other ; in certain lights his chin boasted a few hairs of a forlorn and desolate appear- ance, in other lights you would swear that there were none. His forehead often broke into pimples (these were a terrible agony to him) . "Why can't he do something with his hair?" thought Philip, "brush it and have it cut regularly. Why is it that awful dusty colour ? He might at least do something to his clothes. Mrs. Trenchard ought to see to it." Mrs. Trenchard did try to "see to it". She was perpetually buying new clothes for Henry ; she took him to her husband's tailor and dragged him, again and again, to have things "tried on". Henry, however, possessed the art of reducing any suit, within twenty-four hours of his first wearing it, to chaos. He was puzzled himself to know what he did. "But, Henry, it was new last week!" LIFE AND HENEY 167 *6I know. How can I help it ? I haven't done anything to the beastly thing. It simply came like that." He affected a lofty indifference to clothes, but Philip, who saw him look frequently into the looking-glass, suspected the sincerity of this. Katherine said to Philip : "You have so much influence on Henry. Do talk to him about his clothes and other things. He won't mind it from you. He gets so angry if we say anything.'7 Philip was not at all sure that Henry would "not mind it from him". When they were alone Henry would listen with the greatest interest to the things that Philip told him ; his eyes would soften, his mouth would smile, his voice would quiver with his excitement. Then, quite suddenly, his face would cloud, he would blush and frown, almost scowl, then, abruptly, with some half -muttered word, fall into a sulky silence. Once he had broken in to Philip's information with : "Oh! I suppose you think I don't know anything about it, that I'm a stupid idiot. . . . Well, if I am, what do you bother to talk to me for?" This, of course, annoyed Philip, who always liked to feel, after a conversation with anyone, that "everything had gone off all right". Had it not been for Katherine, he would not have bothered with the fellow. Another thing puzzled and even alarmed Philip. Henry would often, when he thought that he was unwatched, stare at Philip in a perplexed brood- ing fashion with a look in his eye that said: "I'll find out one day all right. You think that no one's watching you, that I'm not worth anyone's trouble. . . . You wait and see." Henry would look at Philip's buttons, studs, tie, handker- chief with this same puzzled stare. It was another side of that surveillance of which Philip had been conscious ever since Tim Flaunder's visit to his rooms. "Ah!" thought Philip, "once I'm married, they can watch as much as they like. ... A year's a long time though." He decided then to cultivate Henry and to know the boy better. "I'll show him that there's nothing in me to be sus- 168 THE GREEN MIRROR pieious about — that I'm worthy of marrying his sister. I'll make a friend of him." He asked George Trenchard whether he might give Henry an evening. "Take him out to dinner and a music-hall. I'll look after him." Trenchard said: "My dear fellow, if you can make Henry look something like an ordinary civilised being we'll all be in your debt for ever. I don't envy you your job . . . but, of course, do what you like with him." When Philip told Mrs. Trenchard she said : "How nice for Henry ! How kind of you to bother with the boy ! He goes out so little. How nice for Henry !" When Philip asked Henry himself, Henry coloured crim- son, looked at his boots, muttered something about shirts, stammered "Thanks „ . . very glad . . . awful bore for you", and finally stumbled from the room. Philip thought Jules for dinner, The Empire, The Carlton for supper. Katherine's delight when he told her compen- sated him for all the effort of the undertaking. To understand Henry's emotion at Philip's invitation would be to understand everything about Henry, and that no one has ever done. His chief sensation was one of delight and excitement — this he hid from all the world. He had waited, during more years than he could remember, for the arrival of that moment when he would be treated as a man. Lately he had said to himself, "If they're all going to laugh at me always, I'll show them one day soon." He had a fero- cious disgust at their lack of penetration. He had, from the very first, admired Philip's appearance. Here was a man still young, with perfect clothes, perfect ability to get in and out of a room easily, perfect tranquillity in conversation. He had been offended at Philip's treatment of Seymour, but even that had been a bold, daring thing to do, and Henry was forced to admit that he had been, since that episode, him- self sometimes doubtful of Seymour's ability. Then Philip in LIFE AND HENRY 169 his conversation had shown such knowledge of the world; Henry could listen all day to his talk about Russia. To he ahle to travel so easily from one country to the other, without fear or hesitation, that was, indeed, wonderful ! Afterwards had occurred one of the critical moments in Henry's career; his passionate memory of that afternoon when he had seen the embrace of Katharine and Philip, changed those two into miraculous beings, apart from all the world. He heard Philip for the audacity of it, he also ad- mired him, envied him, speculated endlessly about it. "Ah ! if somebody would love me like that", he thought. "I'd be just as fine. They think me a baby, not fit even to go to college, I could--! could . . ." He did not know what it was that he could do. Perhaps Philip would help him. And yet he did not really like Philip. He thought that Philip laughed at him, despised him. His one continual fear was lest Philip should teach Katherine, Henry's adored and worshipped Katherine, also to despise him. "If he were to do that I'd kill him", he thought. He believed utterly in ^Catherine's loyalty, "but she loves Philip so now. It's changed her. She'll never belong to us properly again." Always his first thought was : "'So long as he's good to her and makes her happy nothing matters." Now it seemed that Philip was making her happy. Kath- erine's happiness lit, with its glow, the house, the family, all the world. When? therefore, Philip asked Henry to dine with him? the great moment of Henry's life seemed to have come, and to have come from a source honourable enough for Henry to accept it. "If only I dare," Henry thought, "there are 30 many things that I should like to ask him." The remembered passion of that kiss told Henry that there could be nothing that Philip did not know. He was in a ferment of excite- ment and expectation. To the family he said: "I'm afraid I shan't be in, Tuesday evening. Sorry, but 170 THE GREEN MIRROR Philip and I are dining together. Expect I'll be in, Wednes- day, though." It is a fact, strange but true, that Henry had never en- tered one of the bigger London restaurants. The Tren- chards were not among those more modern parents who spend their lives in restaurants and take their infant sons in Eton jackets to supper at the Savoy after the Drury Lane panto- mime. Moreover, no one ever thought of taking Henry anywhere. He had been at school until a few months ago, and when, in the holidays, he had gone to children's parties he had always behaved badly. George Trenchard went very seldom into restaurants, and often, for days together, forgot that he had a son at all. Down in Glebeshire Henry was allowed to roam as he pleased; even in London no restric- tions were placed on his movements. So long as he went to the Abbey twice on Sunday he could do what he liked. A friend of Seymour's had put him up as a member of a club in a little street off St. James: the entrance was only a guinea, and "anyone could be a member". Henry had, three months ago, received a book of club rules, a list of mem- bers, and a printed letter informing him that he was now elected, must pay five guineas entrance and a guinea sub- scription. He had extorted the money from his father, and, for twenty-four hours, was the proudest and happiest human being in London. He had never, alas ! dared to venture inside the building. Seymour's friend had forgotten him. The Club had remained strangely ignorant of his existence. On three occasions he had started out, and on three occasions his fears had been too strong for him. Once he had arrived at the very club door, but a stout gentleman, emerging and staring at him haughtily, had driven the blood from his heart. He had hurried home, feeling that he had been per- sonally insulted. He found, on his return, that some ve- hicle Lad splashed mud on to his cheek. "There! you see what happens ! . . ." He was not far from tears. LIFE AND HENRY 171 He had, behind his unhappy experiences, the resolved cer- tainty that he was marked apart by destiny for some extraor- dinary future: his very misfortunes seemed to prove this. He had bought for himself a second-hand copy of that ro- mance to which I have made earlier allusion. It exercised, at this time, an extraordinary influence upon him, and in the hero's fight against an overwhelming fate he saw his own history, even when the circumstance was as trivial as his search for a stud under the washing-stand. So young was he, so crude, so sentimental, impulsive, suspicious, self-con- fident, and lacking in self-confidence, loyal, ambitious, mod- est and conceited that it was not strange that Philip did not understand him. On the evening of his dinner with Philip he dressed with the utmost care. There were three dress-shirts in his drawer, and it was, of course, fate that decided that there should be something the matter with all of them — one of them had been worn once already, one was frayed at the cuffs, one had a cracked and gaping stud hole. He pared the frayed cuffs with his scissors, and hoped for the best. He then produced the only valuable article in his possession, a pearl stud given to him by his Uncle Bob on his last birthday. He was greatly afraid of this stud, because the head of it screwed into the bodv of it. and he was never sure whether he had t/ screwed it sufficiently. Suppose it were to leap into the soup ! Suppose it were to fall off and he not see it and lose it ! Such catastrophes were only too probable where he was concerned. He screwed it in so vigorously to-night that he made a grey mark round the stud-hole. He dabbed this with a sponge, and the grey mark was greyer. His father had told him that he must never wear a "made-up" evening tie, but he had not told him how to tie one that was not made-up, and Henry had been too timid to enquire. To-night, by a sudden twist of genius, he produced some- thing that really seemed satisfactory; one end was longer 172 THE GBEEN MIEKOR than the other, but his father approved of a little disorder — when the tie was too neat it was almost "made-up". Henry's dress-clothes, lying there upon the bed, seemed a little faded. The trousers glistered in the electric light, and the tails of the coat were sadly crumpled. But when they were on his body Henry gazed at them with pleasure. One trouser leg seemed oddly longer than the other, and his shirt cuff had disappeared altogether, but the grey mark round the stud was scarcely visible, and his collar was beautifully clean. His face was red and shining, his hair was plastered down with water; it was a pity that there were three red pimples on his forehead, but there had been four yesterday. His ears, too, were dreadfully red, but that was from ex- citement. He had an opera hat and a black greatcoat with a velvet collar, so that he felt very smart indeed as he slipped out of the house. He was glad that he had escaped the family, although he fancied that Aunt Aggie watched him from the top of the stairs. He would have liked to have seen Kath- erine for a moment, and had he spoken his heart out, he would have assured her that, for her sake, he would do his best to love Philip. It was for her sake, after all, that he had dressed so carefully, for her sake that he wanted to be a fine figure in the world. If he had seen her, all that he would have said would have been: "So long, Katherine. Dining with Philip, you know. See you in the morn- ing. . . ." He rode on an omnibus from Whitehall to Piccadilly Cir- cus, and walked then to Jules'. The clocks were striking half- past seven, the appointed hour, as he entered. A stout man like an emperor insisted on disrobing him of his greatcoat, and he felt suddenly naked. He peeped into the room, which was very empty, and all the waiters, like figures in Mme. Tussaud's, stared at him together. He was sure that his tie had mounted above his collar ; he put up his hand, found that this was so, and thought that the emperor was laughing at LIFE AND HENKY 173 him. He bent down to tie his shoe, and then, just as a large party entered the restaurant, there was a little pop, and the head of his pearl stud was gone. He was on his knees in a second. "Beg pardon, sir/7 said the Emperor. "Allow me." "No," said Henry, whose face was purple, whose heart was beating like a hammer, and through whose chasm in his shirt a little wind was blowing against his vest. "It's my stud. I can — I beg your — Oh, there — No, it isn't—" He was conscious of towering forms above him, of a lady's black silk stockings, of someone saying: "Why, dammit"; of a sudden vision of the pearl and a large masculine boot thundering towards it. From his position on the floor he cried in agony: "Oh, do look out, you're stepping on it ! . . . I say . . . Please !" He heard a sharp little cry, then, just as he seized it, Philip's voice: "Why, Henry!" He staggered up from his knees, which were white with dust: his purple face, his disordered hair, a piece of pink vest that protruded from his shirt made an unusual picture. Someone began to laugh. "I say," said Philip quickly, "come in here." He led the way into the lavatory. "Now, what's the matter?" Henry stared at him. Why couldn't the silly fool see ? "It's mv stud . . . the head came off ... might have i/ *— •* happened to anyone." "That's all right," said Philip cheerfully. "'Got it now ? That's good. Look here, I'll screw it in for you." "The other piece . . ." said Henry, who was near tears . . . "It's slipped down — inside." "I'm afraid you'll have to take your trousers off," said Philip gravely. "Just let 'em down. It's all right. There's no one here who matters." Henry undressed. A smart man with hair Hke a looking- 174 THE GREEN MIRROR glass came in, stared and went out again. Two attendants watched sympathetically. After some time the stud was ar- ranged, and Henry was dressed again. "You'd better just let me tie your tie," said Philip. "It's so difficult in here. One can't see to do it oneself." Henry said nothing. He brushed his hair again, suffered himself to be dusted and patted by the attendant, and fol- lowed Philip into the restaurant. He was so miserable that suicide was the only alternative to a disgraced and dishon- oured life. He was sure that everyone in the restaurant was laughing at him ; the grave waiter who brought him his soup, the fat, round button of a waiter who brought the cham- pagne in a bucket of ice, the party opposite, two men and two women (beasts!), all these were laughing at him! His forehead was burning, his heart deadly cold. He glared at Philip, gulped down his food without knowing at all what it was that he was eating, said "yes" and "no" ; never looked at Philip, but stared, fiercely, round him as though he were looking for someone. Philip persisted, very bravely, in a succession of bright and interesting anecdotes, but at last he flagged. He was afraid that he had a terrible evening before him . . . never again. . . . "He's thinking," said Henry to himself, "that I'm im- possible. He's wondering what on earth he asked me for. Why did he if he didn't want to ? Conceited ass . . . that about the stud might have happened to anyone. He'll tell Katherine. ..." "Coffee ?" said Philip. "No, thank you," said Henry. "All right. We'll have it later. We'd better be getting on to the show. Ready ?" They moved away ; they were in a cab ; they were caught into the heart of some kaleidoscope. Lights flashed, men shouted, someone cried in a high treble. Lights flashed again, and they were sitting in the stalls at the "Empire" music- LIFE AND HENRY 175 hall. Henry hailed the darkness with relief; he felt as though his body were bruised all over, and when he looked up and saw a stout man upside down on a tight-rope he thought to himself: "Well, he can't see me anyhow. . . . He doesn't know that the top of my stud came off." There followed then a number of incredible people. (It must be remembered that he had never been to a music-hall before.) There was a man with two black eyes and a red nose who sang a song about the wives he had had (seven verses — one wife to every verse) , there was a stout lady who sang about porter, and there were two small children who danced the Tango — finally a gentleman in evening dress and a large white button-hole who recited poems whilst his friends in the background arranged themselves in illustrative groups. In this strange world Henry's soul gradually found peace. It was a world, after all, in which it was not absurd to grope on one's knees for the top of one's stud— it was the natural and clever thing to do. When the lady who sang about the porter kissed her hand to the audience, Henry, clapping en- thusiastically, felt a throb of sympathy. "I'm so glad she's been a success to-night," he thought to himself, as though she had been his cousin or his aunt. "She'll feel pleased." He wanted, by this time, everyone to be happy. . . . When, at the last, the fat man in evening clothes recited his tale of "the good old British Flag," and was surrounded instantly by a fluttering cloud of Union Jacks, Henry was very near to tears. "I'll make them send me to Oxford," he said to himself. "At once . . . I'll work like anything." The lights went up — ten minutes' interval- -whilst the band played tunes out of "Eiogletta", and behind the curtain they prepared for that immensely popular ballet "The Pirate". "Let's walk about a bit, shall we?" said Philip. Henry, humbly, with a timid smile agreed. He tumbled over a lady as he passed out of his row, but he did not mind now, his eyes were shining and his head was up. He fol- 176 THE GBEEN MIKEOE lowed Philip, admiring his broad shoulders, the back of his head, his sturdy carriage and defiant movement of his body. He glared haughtily at young men lolling over the bar, and the young men glared back haughtily at him. He followed Philip upstairs, and they turned into the Promenade (Henry did not know that it was the Promenade). With his head in the air he stepped forward and plunged instantly into some- thing that flung powder down his throat, a strange and acrid scent up his nose : his fingers scraped against silk. "There! clumsy!'7 said a voice. A lady wearing a large hat and (as it appeared to Henry) tissue of gold, smiled at him. "It doesn't matter," she said, putting some fat fingers on his hand for a moment. "It doesn't, dear, really. Hot, isn't it?" He was utterly at a loss, scarlet in the face, his eyes staring wildly. Philip had come to his rescue. Hot, it is," said Philip. 'What about a drink, dear?" said the lady. Not just now," said Philip, smiling at her as though he'd known her all his life. "Jolly good scrum up here, isn't there «" "Everyone bangin' about so," said the lady. "What about a drink now? Rot waitinV "Sorry," said Philip. "Got an engagement. Very im- portant — " The lady, however, had suddenly recognised an old friend. "Why, Charlie !" Henry heard her say : "Who " "' " ever They sat down on a sofa near the bar and watched the group. Henry was thinking: "He spoke to her as though he had known her all his life. ..." He was suddenly aware that he and his father and mother and aunts, yes, and Kath- erine too were babies compared with Philip. "Why, they don't know anything about him. Katherine doesn't know any- thing really. ..." He watched the women who passed him ; he watched their confidential whispers with gentlemen who all LIFE AND HENKY seemed to have red faces and bulging necks. He watched two old men with their hats cocked to one side; they had faces like dusty strawberries, and they wore white gloves and car- ried silver-topped canes. They didn't speak, and nothing moved in their faces except their eyes. He watched a woman who was angry and a man who was apologetic. He watched a girl in a simple black dress who stood with grave, waiting eyes. She suddenly smiled a welcome to someone, but the smile was hard, practised, artificial, as though she had fast- ened it on like a mask. Philip belonged to these people; he knew their ways, their talk, their etiquette, their tragedies and comedies. Henry stared at him, at his gaze, rather un- interested and tired. (Philip, at that moment, was thinking of Katherine, of the bore that her vounff brother was : he was / i/ O remembering the last time that she had kissed him, of her warm cheek against his, of a little laugh that she had given, a laugh of sheer happiness, of trusting, confident delight.) Henry sat there, frightened, thrilled, shocked, proud, indig- nant and terribly inquisitive. "I'm beginning to know about life. Already I know more than they do at home." Two boys who must have been younger than he passed him ; they were smart, shining, scornful. They had the derisive, incurious gaze of old men, and also the self-assertive swagger of very young ones. Henry, as he looked at them, knew that he was a babe in arms compared with them; but it seemed to him to-night that all his family was still in the cradle. "Why, even father." he thought, "if you brought him here I don't believe he'd know what to say or do." They went downstairs, then found their seats, and the cur- tain rose on the ballet. The ballet was concerned with pirates and Venice in the good Old Days. The first scene was on an island in the Adriatic : there were any number of pirates and ladies who loved them, and the sun slowly set and the dancers on the golden sand sank, exhausted, at the feet of their lovers, and the moon rose and the stars came out in a purple sky. Then the Pirate Chief, an enormous Byronic figure with hair 178 THE GKEEN MIKEOE jet black and tremendous eyebrows, explained through his hands, that there was a lady in \^enice whom he loved, whom he must seize and convey to his island. Would his brave fel- lows follow him in his raid ? His brave fellows would ! One last dance and one last drink, then death and glory! The curtain came down upon figures whirling madly beneath the moon. There followed then the Doge's Palace, a feast with much gold plate, aged senators with white beards, who watched the dancing with critical gaze, finally a lovely lady who danced mysteriously beneath many veils. She was, it appeared, a Princess, sought in marriage by the Doge, her heart, however, lost utterly to a noble Stranger whom she had once seen but never forgotten. The Doge, mad with love for her, orders her to be seized. She is carried off, wildly protesting, and the golden scene is filled with white dancers, then with fantastic masked figures, at last with dancers in black, who float like shadows through the mazes of the music. The third scene is the Piazza. The country people have a holiday — drinking and dancing. Then enters a magnificent procession, the Doge leading his reluctant bride. Suddenly shouts are heard. It is the Pirates ! A furious fight follows, the Pirates, headed by their chief, who wears a black mask, are, of course, victorious. The Princess is carried, screaming, to the Pirates' ship, treasure is looted, pretty village maidens are captured. The Pirates sail away. Last scene is the Island again. The ladies are expecting their heroes, the ves- sel is sighted, the Pirates land. There are dances of tri- umph, the spoil, golden goblets, rich tapestries, gleaming jewels are piled high, finally the captive lady Princess, who weeps bitterly, is led by the Chieftain, still masked, into the middle of the stage. She, upon her knees, begs for pity. He is stern (a fine melancholy figure). At last he removes the mask. iBehold, it is the noble Stranger ! With what rapture does she fall into his arms, with what dances are the trium- phant Pirates made happy, upon what feasting does the sun LIFE AND HENRY 179 again set. The moon rises and the stars appear. Finally, when the night-sky is sheeted with dazzling' lights and the moon, is orange-red, the Pirates and their ladies creep away. Only the Chieftain and his Princess, locked in one another's arms, are left. Someone, in the distance, pipes a little tune . . . the curtain descends. Impossible to describe the effect that this had upon Henry. The nearest approach to its splendour in all his life before had been the Procession of Nations at the end of the Drury Lane pantomime, and, although he had found that very beau- tiful, he had nevertheless been disturbed by a certain sense ' t/ of incongruity, Aladdin and his Princess having little to do with Canada and Australia represented, as those fine coun- tries were, by two stout ladies of the Lane chorus. I think that this "Pirate" ballet may be said to be the Third Crisis in this critical development of Henry, the first being the novel about the Forest, the second his vision of Katherine and Philip. It will be, perhaps, remembered that at Jules' restaurant Henry had drunk champagne and, because of his misery and confusion there, had had no consciousness of flavour, quantity or consequences. It was certainly the champagne that lent "The Pirate" an added colour and splendour. As the boy followed Philip into Leicester Square he felt that any achievement would be now possible to him, any sum- mit was to be climbed by him. The lights of Leicester Square circled him with fire — at the flame's heart were dark trees soft and mysterious against the night sky — beneath these trees, guarded by the flame, the Pirate and the Princess slept. It seemed to him that now he understood all the world, that he could be astonished and shocked by nothing, that every man, be he never so degraded, was his brother. . . . He was unaware that his tie was again above his collar and his shoe lace unfastened. He strode along, thinking to himself: "How glorious ! . o . How splendid ! . . . How glorious !" Philip, too, although the Empire ballet had once been com- 180 THE GREEN MIRROR monplace enough, although, moreover, he had come so little a time ago from the country where the hallet was in all the world supreme, had been plunged by the Pirate into a most sentimental attitude of mind. He was to-night terribly in love with Katherine, and, when the lights had been turned down and the easy, trifling music had floated out to him, caught him, soothed and whispered to him, he had held Katherine in his arms, her cheek touching his, her heart beating with his, his hand against her hair. Her confidence in him that, at other times, frightened him, to-night thrilled him with a delicious pleasure. His old dis- trust of himself yielded, to-night, to a fine, determined assur- ance. "I will be all that she thinks I am. She shall see how I love her. They shall all see." "I think we'll go down into the Grill Room," said Philip, when they arrived at the Carlton. "We can talk better there." It was all the same to Henry, who was busy feasting with the Pirate upon the Adriatic Island, with the Princess danc- ing for them on the golden sand. They found a quiet little table in that corner which is one of the pleasantest places in London, so retired from the world are you and yet so easy is it to see all that goes on amongst your friends, enemies and neighbours. "Oysters ? . . . Must have oysters, Henry. . . . Then grilled bones . . . then we'll see. Whisky and soda — split soda, waiter, please. . . ." Henry had never eaten oysters before, and he would have drunk his whisky with them had Philip not stopped him. "Never drink whisky with oysters — you'd die — you would really." Henry did not like oysters very much, but he would have suffered the worst kind of torture rather than say so. The bones came, and the whisky with them. Henry drank his first glass very quickly in order to show that he was quite used to it. He thought, as he looked across the table, that Philip LIFE AND HENBY 181 was the finest fellow in the world ; no one had ever been so kind to him as Philip- -How could he ever have disliked Philip ? Philip was going to marry Katherine, and was the only man in all the world who was worthy of her. Henry felt a burning desire to confide in Philip, to tell him all his most secret thoughts, his ambitions, his troubles. . . . He drank his second glass of whisky, and began a long, rather stumbling narration. "You know, I shall never be able to tell you how grateful I am to you for giving me such a ripping evening. All this time . . . I've been very rude sometimes, I expect . . . you must have thought me a dreadful ass, and I've wanted so much to show you that I'm not." "That's all right," said Philip, who was thinking of Kath- erine. a , it isn't all right," said Henry, striking the table with his fist. "I must tell you, now that you've been so kind to me. You see I'm shy really, I wouldn't like most people to know that, but I am. I'm shy because I'm so unfortunate about little things. You must have noticed long ago how unlucky I am. Nothing ever goes right with me at home. I'm always untidy and my clothes go to pieces and I break things. People seem to think I want to . . ." His voice was fierce for a moment. 'That's all right," said Philip again. "Have some more bone." "Yes, thank you," said Henry, staring darkly in front of him. "I don't know why I'm so unfortunate, because I know I could do things if I were given a chance, but no one will ever let me try. What do they keep me at home for when I ought to be at Oxford ? Why don't they settle what I'm going to be ? It's quite time for them to make up their mind. . . . It's a shame, a shame. . . ." "So it is. So it is," said Philip. "But it will be all right if you wait a bit." "I'm always told I've got to wait," said Henry fiercely. 182 THE GKEEN MIBROH "What about other fellows ? ISFo one tells them to wait. . . . I'm nineteen, and there are plenty of men of nineteen I know who are doing all kinds of things. I can't even dress properly — soot and fluff always come and settle on my clothes rather than on anyone else's. I've often noticed it. Then people laugh at me for nothing. They don't laugh at other men." "You oughtn't to care," said Philip. "I try not to, but you can't help it if it happens often." "What do you want to be ?" said Philip. "What would you like to do ?" "I don't mind; anything," said Henry, "if only I did it properly. I'd rather be a wraiter who didn't make a fool of himself than what I am. I'd like to be of use. I'd like to make people proud of me. I'd like Katherine — At that name he suddenly stopped and was silent. "Well?" said Philip. '"What about Katherine? . . . Have some more whisky. . . . Waiter, coffee." "I want to do something," said Henry, "to make Katherine proud of me. I know it must be horrible for her to have a brother whom everyone laughs at. It's partly because of her that I'm so shy. But she understands me as none of the others do. She knows I've got something in me. She believes in me. She's the only one. ... I can talk to her. She understands when I say that I want to do something in the world. She doesn't laugh. And I'd die for her. . . . Here, now, if it was necessary. And I'll tell you one thing. I didn't like you at first. When you got engaged to Katherine I hated it until I saw that she'd probably have to be engaged to someone, and it might as well be you." "Thank you," said Philip, laughing. "I saw how happy you made her. It's hard on all of us who've known her so long, but we don't mind that ... if you do make her happy." "So," said Philip, "it's only by the family's permission that I can keep her ?" "Oh, you know what I mean," said Henry. "Of course LIFE AKD HESTKY 183 she's her own mistress. She can do what she likes. But she is fond of us. And I don't think — if it canie to it — that she'd ever do anything to hurt us." "If it came to what ?" said Philip. But Henry shook his head. "Oh ! I'm only talking. I meant that we're fonder of one another as a family than people outside can realise. We don't seem to he if you watch us, hut if it came to pulling us apart — to — to — taking Kath- erine away, for instance, it — it wouldn't be easy." "Another soda, waiter," said Philip. "But I don't want to take Katherine away. I don't want there to be any difference to anyone." "There must be a difference," said Henry, shaking his head and looking very solemn. "If it had been Millie it mightn't have mattered so much, because she's been away a lot as it is, but with Katherine — you see, we've always thought that whatever misfortune happened, Katherine would be there — and now we can't think that any longer." "But that," said Philip, who'd drunk quite a number of whiskies by this time, "was very selfish of you. You couldn't expect her never to marry." "We never thought about it," said Henry. He spoke now rather confusedly and at random. "We aren't the sort of people who look ahead. I suppose we haven't got much imagination as a family. None of the Trenchards have. That's why we're fond of one another and can't imagine ever not being." Philip leant forward. "Look here, Henry, I want us to be friends — real friends. I love Katherine so much that I would do anything for her. If she's happy you won't grudge her to me, will you? . . . I've felt a little that you, some of you, don't trust me, that you don't understand me. But I'm just what I seem : I'm not worthy of Katherine. I can't think why she cares for me, but, as she does, it's better, isn't it, that she should be happy ? If you'd all help me, if you'd all be friends with me — " 184 THE GKEEN MIRROR He had for some minutes been conscious that there was something odd about Henry. He had been intent on his own thoughts, but behind them something had claimed his attention. Henry was now waving a hand in the air vaguely, he was looking at his half-empty glass with an intent and puzzled eye. Philip broke off in the middle of his sentence, arrested suddenly by this strangeness of Henry's eye, which was now fixed and staring, now red and wandering. He gazed at Henry, a swift, terrible suspicion striking him. Henry, with a face desperately solemn, gazed back at him. The boy then tried to speak, failed, and very slowly a large fat tear trembled down his cheek. "I'm trying — I'm trying," he began. "I'll be your friend — always — I'll get up — stand — explain. . . . I'll make a speech," he suddenly added. "Good Lord !" Philip realised with a dismay pricked with astonishment, "the fellow's drunk." It had happened so swiftly that it was as though Henry were acting a part. Five minutes earlier Henry had apparently been perfectly sober. He had drunk three whiskies and sodas. Philip had never imagined this catastrophe, and now his emotions were a confused mixture of alarm, annoyance, impatience and dis- gust at his own imperception. Whatever Henry had been five minutes ago, there was no sort of question about him now. "Someone's taken off my — b-boots," he confided very con- fidentially to Philip. "Who— did?" The one clear thought in Philip's brain was that he must get Henry home quietly — from the Carlton table to Henry's bed, and with as little noise as possible. Only a few people now remained in the Grill Room. He summoned the waiter, paid the bill. Henry watched him. "You must — tell them — about my boots," he said. "It's absurd." "It's all right," said Philip. "They've put them on again now. It's time for us to be moving." He was relieved to LIFE AND HENRY 185 see that Henry rose at once and, holding for a moment on to the table, steadied himself. His face, very solemn and sad, with its large, mournful eyes and a lock of hair tumbling forward over his forehead, was both ridiculous and pathetic. Philip took his arm. "Come on," he said. "Time to go home." Henry followed very meekly, allowed them to put on his coat, was led upstairs and into a "taxi." Then he suddenly put his head between his hands and began to sob. He would say nothing, but only sobbed hope- lessly. "It's all right," said Philip, as though he were speaking to a child of five. "There's nothing to cry about. You'll be home in a moment." He was desperately annoyed at the misfortune. Whv could he not have seen that Henrv was U i/ drinking too much ? But Henry had drunk so little. Then he had had champagne at dinner. Pie wasn't used to it. Philip cursed his own stupidity. Now if they made a noise on the way to Henry's room there might follow fatal conse- quences. If anyone should see them ! Henry's sobs had ceased : he seemed to be asleep. Philip shook his arm. "Look here ! We must take care not to wake anyone. Here we are ! Quietly now, and where's your key ?" "Wash key »" said Henry. Philip had a horrible suspicion that Henry had forgotten his key. He searched. Ah ! there it was in the waistcoat pocket. Henry put his arms round Philip's neck. "They've turned the roa' upside down," he whispered con- fidentially. "We mustn't lose each other." They entered the dark hall. Philip with one arm round Henry's waist. Henry sat on the lowest step of the stairs. "I'll shtay here to-night," he said. "It's shafer," and was instantly asleep. Philip lifted him, then with Henry's boots tapping the stairs at each step, they moved upwards. Henry was heavy, and at the top Philip had to pause for breath. 186 THE GEEEN MIEEOE Suddenly the boy slipped from his arms and fell with a crash. The whole house re-echoed. Philip's heart stopped heating, and his only thought was, "Now I'm done. They'll all be here in a moment. They'll drive me away. Katherine will never speak to me again." A silence followed abys- mally deep, only broken by some strange snore that came from the heart of the house (as though it were the house that was snoring) and the ticking of two clocks that, in their race against one another, whirred and chuckled. Philip picked Henry up again and proceeded. He found the room, pushed open the door, closed it and switched on the light. He then undressed Henry, folding the clothes care- fully, put upon him his pyjamas, laid him in bed and tucked him up. Henry, his eyes closed as though by death, snored heavily. . . . Philip turned the light out, crept into the passage, listened, stole downstairs, let himself into the Square, where he stood for a moment, in the cold night air, the only living thing in a sleeping world, then hastened away. "Thank Heaven," he thought, "we've escaped." He had not escaped. Aunt Aggie, a fantastic figure in a long blue dressing-gown, roused by Henry's fall, had watched, from her bedroom door, the whole affair. She waited until she had heard the hall-door close, then stole down and locked it, stole up again and disappeared silently into her room. When Henry woke in the morning his headache was very different from any headache that he had ever endured be- fore. His first thought was that he could never possibly get up, but would lie there all day. His second that, whatever he did, he must rouse suspicion in no one, his third that he really had been terribly drunk last night, and remembered nothing after his second whisky at the Carlton, his fourth that someone must have put him to bed last night, because his clothes were folded carefully, whereas it was his own custom always to fling them about the room. At this moment LIFE AND HENRY 187 Rocket (who always took upon himself the rousing of Henry) entered with hot water. "Time to get up, sir," he said. "Breakfast-bell in twenty minutes. Bath quite ready." Henry watched. "He'll suspect something when he sees those clothes," he thought. But Rocket, apparently, sus- pected nothing. Henry got up, had his bath and slowly dressed. His headache was quite horrible, being a cold head- ache with a heavy weight of pain on his skull and a taste in his mouth of mustard and bad eggs. He felt that he could not possibly disguise from the world that he was unwell. Looking in the glass he saw that his complexion was yellow and muddy, but then it was never, at any time, very splen- did. He looked cross and sulky, but then that would not sur prise anyone. He went downstairs and passed successfully through the ordeal : fortunately Aunt Aggie was in bed. Only Millie, laughing, said to him: "You don't look as though evenings with Philip suited you, Henry — " (How he hated Millie when she teased him!) "Well, I'm sure," said Mrs. Trenchard placidly, "there must be thunder about — thunder about. I always feel it in my back. George dear, do put that paper down, your tea's quite cold." "Well," said George Trenchard, looking up from the 'Morning Post' and beaming upon everyone, "what did Philip do with you last night, Henry. Show you the town- eh?" "We had a very pleasant evening, thank you, father," said Henry. "We went to the Empire." "You came in very quietly. I didn't hear you. Did you hear him, Harriet ?" "No," said Mrs. Trenchard. "I do hope you locked the front door, Henry." "Oh, yes, mother. That was all right," he said hurriedly. "Well, dear, I'm very glad you had a pleasant evening. It was kind of Philip — very kind of Philip. Yes, that's 188 THE GREEN MIRROR Aunt Aggie's tray, Katie dear. I should put a little more marmalade — and that bit of toast, the other's rather dry- yes, the other's rather dry. Poor Aggie says she had a dis- turbed night — slept very badly. I shouldn't wonder whether it's the thunder. I always know by my back. Thank you, Katie. Here's a letter from Rose Eaunder, George, and she says, 'etc., etc.' After breakfast Henry escaped into the drawing-room ; he sank into his favourite chair by the fire, which was burning with a cold and glassy splendour that showed that it had just been lit. The room was foggy, dim and chill, exactly suited to Henry, who, with his thin legs stretched out in front of him and his headache oppressing him with a reiterated em- phasis as though it were some other person insisting on his attention, stared before him and tried to think. He wanted to think everything out, but could consider nothing clearly. It was disgusting of him to have been drunk, but it was Philip's fault — that was his main conclusion. Looking back, everything seemed to be Philip's fault — even the disaster to himself. There was in Henry a strange puri- tanical, old-maidish strain, which, under the persuasion of the headache, was allowed full freedom. Philip's intimacy with those women, Philip's attitude to drink, to ballets, even to shirt studs, an attitude of indifference bred of long cus- tom, seemed to Henry this morning sinister and most suspi- cious. Philip had probably been laughing at him all the evening, thought him a fool for getting drunk so easily (ter- rible idea this), would tell other people about his youth and inexperience. Thoughts like these floated through Henry's aching head, but he could not really catch them. Everything escaped him. He could only stare into the old mirror, with its reflection of green carpet and green wall-paper, and fancy that he was caught, held prisoner by it, condemned to re- main inside it for ever, with an aching head and an irri- tated conscience. He was ill, he was unhappy, and yet through it all ran the LIFE AND HENRY 189 thought: "You are a man now. You have received your freedom. You'll never be a boy again. ..." He was aroused from his thoughts by the sudden vision of Katherine, who was, he found, sitting on the elbow of his armchair with her hand on his shoulder. "Hullo," he said, letting her take his hand. "I didn't hear you come in." "I didn't know vou were in here,'' she answered. "You i/ / were hidden by the chair. I was looking for you, though." "Why ?" said Henry, suspiciously. "Oh, nothing — except that I wanted to hear about last night. Did you enjoy it?" "Very much." "Was Philip nice ?" "Very nice." "What did you do ?" "Oh, we dined at Jules, went to the Empire, had supper at the Carlton, and came home." He looked at Katherine's eyes, felt that he was a surly brute and added : "The ballet was called 'The Pirate'. I thought it was fine, but it was the first one I'd seen — I don't think Philip cared much for it, but then he's seen so many in Moscow, where they go on all night and are perfectly splendid." Katherine's hand pressed his shoulder a little, and he, in response, drew closer to her. "I'm glad Philip was nice to you," she said, gazing into the fire. "I want you two to be great friends." There sprang then a new note into her voice, as though she were resolved to say something that had been in her mind a long time. "Henry — tell me — quite honestly, I want to know. Have I been a pig lately? A pig about everybody. Since I've been engaged have I neglected you all and been different to you all and hurt you all ?" "No," said Henry, slowly. "Of course you haven't . . » but it has been different a little — it couldn't help being." "What has ?" 190 THE GREEN MIRROR "Well, of course, we don't mean so much to you now. How can we ? I suppose what Philip said last night is true, that we've been all rather selfish ahout you, and now we're suffering for it." "Did Philip say that ?" 'Yes — or something like it." "It isn't true. It simply shows that he doesn't under- stand what we all are to one another. I suppose we're dif- ferent. I've been feeling, since I've been engaged, that we must be different. Philip is so continually surprised at the things we do." Henry frowned. "He needn't be. There's nothing very wonderful in our all being fond of you." She got up from the chair and began to walk up and down the room. Henry's eyes followed her. "I don't know what it is," she said suddenly. "But dur- ing these last weeks it's as though you were all hiding some- thing from me. Even you and Millie. Of course I know that Aunt Aggie hates Philip. She never can hide her feel- ings. But mother . . ." Katherine broke out. "Oh ! it's all so silly ! Why can't we all be natural ? It's unfair to Philip. He's ready for anything, he wants to be one of us, and you, all of you — " "It isn't quite fair," said Henry slowly, "to blame only us. We've all been very nice to Philip, I think. I know Aunt Betty and Millie and father like him very much." "And you ?" said Katherine. "I don't think I'd like anyone who was going to take you away." "But he isn't going to take me away. That's where you're all so wrong. He's just going to be one more of the family." Henry said nothing. Katherine then cried passionately: "Ah, you don't know him! you simply don't know him!" She stopped, her eyes shining, her whole body stirred by her happiness. She came over and stood close to him: "Henry, whatever happens, LIFE AND HENBY 191 whatever happens, nothing can take me away from you and mother and the rest. Nor from Garth. . . . If you're sure of that then you needn't be afraid of Philip." Henry looked up at her. "Suppose, Katherine- -just sup- pose— that he insisted on your going, leaving us all, leaving Garth, going right away somewhere. What would you do ?" Katherine smiled with perfect confidence. "He wouldn't insist on anything that would make me so unhappy — or any- one unhappy. All he wants is that everyone should like everyone else, and that no one should be hurt." "I'm not sure," said Henry, "whether it isn't that sort who hurt people most in the end." He took her hand in his. "He can do anything he likes, Katherine, anything, and I'll adore him madly, so long as he doesn't hurt you. If he does that — " Aunt Aggie, standing in the doorway with the look of one who must live up to having had breakfast in bed, inter- rupted him : "Ah, Katherine, there you are. The last thing I want is to give trouble to anyone, but I passed so poor a night that I feel quite unequal to marking those pillow-cases that I offered yesterday to do for your mother. I was so anxious yesterday afternoon to help her, as indeed I always am, but of course I couldn't foretell that my night would be so dis- turbed. I wonder whether you — " "Why, of course, Aunt Aggie," said Katherine. Henry's morning reflections resolved themselves finally into the decision that to continue his emancipation he would, definitely, before the day closed, penetrate into the heart of his Club. He found, when he arrived there, that he was so deeply occupied with thoughts of Katherine, Philip and himself that he knew no fear. He boldly passed the old man in the hall who exactly resembled a goat, climbed the stairs with the air of one who had been doing it all his life, and dis- covered a room with a fire, a table with papers, some book- cases with ancient books, and Seymour. That gentleman was 192 THE GEEEE" MIKEOK standing before the fire, a smile of beaming self-satisfaction upon his red fat face ; he greeted Henry with that altruistic welcome that was peculiarly his own. A manner that im- plied that God had sent him especially into the world to show other men how to be jolly, optimistic, kind-hearted and healthy. "Why, who ever expected to see you here ?" he cried. "You're yellow about the gills, my son. Have a whisky and soda." "2s"o, thank you," said Henry, with an internal shudder. "I thought I'd just look in." "Why, of course," said Seymour. "How jolly to see you!" They drew their chairs in front of the fire and talked — at least Seymour talked. He told Henry what a lucky fel- low he, Seymour, was how jolly the world was, how splendid the weather was. He let slip by accident the facts that three publishers were fighting for his next book, that America had gone mad about his last one ("although I always said, you know, that to be popular in America was a sure sign that one was no good"), and that he'd overheard some woman at a party saying that he was the most interesting young man of the day. He told these tales with an air as though he would imply — "How absurd these "people are! How ridiculous!" Then, suddenly, he paused. It seemed that he had re- membered something. "By the way, Trenchard — I knew there was something. There's a fellow in this Club, just been lunching with him. I don't expect he's gone. I want you to meet him, I was thinking about you at luncheon. He's just come from Mos- cow, where he's been two years." "Moscow ?" said Henry. "Yes. I'll go and find him. He may have left if I don't go now." Seymour hurried away to return an instant later with a very-much dressed young man in a purple suit and a high, LIFE AND HENKY 193 shrill voice. He gave Henry a languid finger, said that he wouldn't mind a drink, and sat down in front of the fire. Seymour began a fresh monologue, the young man (Morri- son was his name) drank his whisky with a delicate foreign attitude which Henry greatly admired, said at last that he must be going. It was only then that Henry plucked up courage. "I say — Seymour tells me you've just come from Mos- cow." "Yes — damned rotten town," said Morrison, "two years of it — nearly killed me." "Did you happen to know," said Henry, "a man there called Mark ?" "What! Phil Mark! Think I did !... Everyone knew Phil Mark! Hot stuff, my word !" "I beg your pardon ?" said Henry. Mr. Morrison looked at Henry with curiosity, stared into his glass, found that it was empty, rose and brushed his trou- sers. u Went the pace — had a mistress there for years — a girl out of the ballet. Everyone knew about it — had a kid, but the kid died . . . conceited sort o' feller — no one liked him. Know I didn't." "It can't have been the same man," said Henry slowly. "No ? daresay not," said Morrison languidly, "name of Philip though. Short square feller, bit fat, black hair; he was in Maddox and Custom's — made a bit of money they said. He chucked the girl and came to England — here some- where now I believe. . . ." He looked at Henry and Seymour, found them silent, disliked the stare in Henry's eyes, saw a speck of dust on his waistcoat, was very serious about this, found the silence un- pleasant and broke away — "Well, so long, you fellows. . . . Must be toddling." He wandered out, his bent shoulders expressing great con- tempt for his company. 194 THE GEEEN MIEEOR Seymour had watched his young friend's face. He was, for once, at a loss. He had known what would occur; he had produced Morrison for no other purpose. He had hated Mark since that day at the Trenchard's house with all the unresting hatred of one whose whole peace of mind depends on the admiration of others. Morrison had told him stories about Mark: he did not, himself, wish to inform Henry, because his own acquaintance with the family and knowledge of Miss Trenchard's engagement made it difficult, but he had no objection at all to Morrison's agency. He was frightened now at Henry's white face and staring eyes. "Did you know this ?" Henry said. " 'Pon my word, Trenchard — no idea. Morrison was talking the other day about Englishmen in Moscow, and men- tioned Mark, I think, but I never connected him. If I'd thought he was coming out with it like that of course I'd have stopped it, but he didn't know — " "He's lying." "Don't know why he should. He'd no idea your sister was engaged. It's a bit rotten, isn't it ? I'm awfully sorry- Henry stared at him. "I believe you did know : I believe vou meant him to tell me. That's what you brought him for i/ t/ C_J — you hate Mark anyway." Henry laughed, then broke off, stared about him as though he did not know where he was, and rushed from the room. He did not know through what streets he passed; he saw no people, heard no noise; was conscious neither of light nor darkness. He knew that it was true. Mark was a blackguard. Katherine— -Katherine. . . . As he crossed the bridge in St. James' Park he tumbled against a man and knocked off his hat. He did not stop to apologise. What was he to do ? What was he to do ? Why had it been he who had heard this ? In the dark hall of the house he saw Katherine. She spoke to, him; he tore past her, tumbling upstairs, running down the passage as though someone pursued him. His bed- room door banged behind him. CHAPTEK IV GARTH IN EOSELANDS iHILIP, on the day following his evening with Henry, left London to spend three weeks with some relations who lived near Manchester. This was the first parting from him that Katharine had suffered since the beginning of their engagement, and when she had said good-bye to him at the station, she seemed to return through empty streets, through a town without colour or movement, and the house, when she entered it, echoed, through its desolate rooms and passages, to her steps. She resolved at once, however, that now was the time to show the family that she was the same Katherine as she had ever been. As she waited for a little in her bedroom, finally dismissing Philip's presence and summoning the others, she laughed to think how simply now she would brush away the little distrusts and suspicions that seemed, during those last weeks, to have grown about her. "They shall know Phil," she thought to herself. "They can't help loving him when they see him as he really is. Any- way, no more keeping anything back." It seemed to her, at that moment, a very simple thing to impart her happiness to all of them. She had no fear that she would fail. Then, almost at once, the most delightful thing occurred. Two or three days after Philip's departure Mrs. Tren- chard, alone with Katherine in the dining-room before break- fast, said: "I've written to Philip, my dear, to ask him to go down with us to Garth." 195 196 THE GREEN MIRROR Katherine7 s eyes shone with pleasure. "Mother ! . . . How delightful of you ! I was hoping that perhaps you might ask him later. But isn't it tiresome to have him so soon ?" "No — my dear — no. "Not tiresome at all. I hope he'll be ahle to come.?? "Of course he'll be able to come/' laughed Katherine. "Yes — well — I've written to ask him. We go down on the fifth of March. Your father thinks that's the best day. Griffiths writes that that business of the fences in Columb meadow should be looked into — Yes. No, Alice, not the ham — tell Grace to boil two more eggs — not enough — I'm glad you're pleased, Katherine." Katherine looked up, and her eyes meeting her mother's, the confidence that had been clouded ever since that fatal affair with the hot-water bottles seemed to leap into life be- tween them. Mrs. Trenchard put out her hand, Katherine moved forward, but at that moment Aunt Aggie and Aunt Betty entered ; breakfast began. "I believe," thought Katherine, "Aunt Aggie waits outside the door and chooses her moment. She's always interrupt- ing. . . ." The fact that there was now some restraint be- tween her mother and herself was only emphasised the more by the feeling of both of them that an opportunity had been missed. And why, Katherine wondered afterwards, had her mother asked Philip ? If he had been invited to come to them after Easter — but now, to go down with them, as one of the fam- ily ! Was not this exactly what Katherine had been desir- i/ t/ ing? And yet she was uncomfortable. She felt sometimes now that her mother, who had once been her other self, in whose every thought, distress, anxiety she had shared, was almost a stranger. "It's just as though there were ghosts in the house," she thought. As she went to bed she was, for the first time in her life, lonely. She longed for Philip . . . then suddenly, GAETH IN BOSELANDS 197 for 110 reason that she could name, began to cry and, so cry- ing, fell asleep. She was much younger than everyone thought her. . . . Throughout the three weeks that followed she felt as though she were beating the air. Rachel Seddon had taken her husband abroad. There was no one to whom she could speak. She wrote to Philip every day, and discovered how useless letters were. She tried to approach Millie, but found that she had not the courage to risk Millie's frankness. Her sister's attitude to her was : "Dear Katie, let's be happy and jolly together without talking about it — it's much bet- ter. . . ." There had been a time, not so very long ago, when they had told one another everything. Henry was the strangest of all. He removed himself from the whole fam- ily, and would speak to no one. He went apparently for long solitary walks. Even his father noticed his depression, and decided that something must really be done with the boy. "We might send him abroad for six months — learn some French or German . . ." but of course nothing was done. Aunt Betty was the only entirely satisfactory member of the family. She frankly revelled in the romance of the whole affair. She was delighted that Katherine had fallen in love "with such a fine manly fellow" as Philip. Her at- tention was always centred upon Katherine to the exclusion of the others, therefore she noticed no restraint nor awkward- ness. She was intensely happy, and went humming about the house in a way that annoyed desperately her sister Aggie. She even wrote a little letter to Philip, beginning "My dear Boy/7 saying that she thought that he'd like to know from one of the family that Katherine was in perfect health and looking beautiful. She received a letter from Philip that surprised and delighted her by its warmth of feeling. This letter was the cause of a little battle with Aggie. They were alone together in Betty's room when she said, half to herself: "Such a delightful letter from the 'dear boy'." 198 THE GREEN MIRROR 'What dear boy ?" said Aunt Aggie sharply. Aunt Betty started, as she always did when anyone spoke to her sharply, sucked her fingers, and then, the colour mount- ing into her cheeks, said: "Philip. He's written to me from Manchester." "I do think, Betty," Aggie answered, "that instead of writing letters to young men who don't want them you might try to take a little of the burden of this house off my shoul- ders. Now that Katherine has lost all her common-sense I'm supposed to do everything. I don't complain. They wish me to help as much as I can, but I'm far from strong, and a little help from you . . ." Then Aunt Betty, with the effect of standing on her toes, her voice quite shrill with excitement, spoke to her sister as she had never, in all her life, spoken to anyone before. "It's too bad, Aggie. I used to think that you were fond of Katherine, that you wished her happiness — Now, ever since her engagement, you've done nothing but complain about her. Sometimes I think you really want to see her unhappy. We ought to be glad, you and I, that she's found someone who will make her happy. It's all your selfishness, Aggie ; just because you don't like Philip for some fancied reason . . . it's unfair and wicked. At anyrate to me you shan't speak against Katherine and Philip. ... I love Katherine, even though you don't." Now it happened that, as I have said elsewhere, Aggie Trenchard loved her niece very deeply. It was a love, how- ever, that depended for its life on an adequate return. "That young man has turned Katherine against me. Ever since he first came into the house I knew it." Now at her sister's accusation her face grew grey and her hands trembled. "Thank you, Betty. I don't think we'll discuss the matter. Because you're blind and know nothing of what goes on under your nose is no reason that other people's sight should be blinded too. Can't you see for yourself the change in Kath- erine ? If you loved her a little more sensibly than you do, GARTH IN ROSELANDS 199 instead of romancing about the affair, you'd look into the future. I tell you that the moment Philip Mark entered this house was the most unfortunate moment in Katherine's life. Nothing but unhappiness will come of it. If you knew what I know — " Aunt Betty was, in spite of herself, struck by the feeling and softness in her sister's voice. "What do you mean ?" she asked. "I mean nothing. I'm right, that's all. You're a silly, soft fool, Elizabeth, and so you always were. But Harriet . . . asking him to go down to Garth with us, when she hates him as I know she does ! 7 don't know what it means. Dcf you suppose that I don't love Katherine any longer ? I love her so much that I'd like to strangle Mr. Philip Mark in his sleep !" She flung from the room, banging the door behind her. Philip arrived on the evening before the departure into the country. He came well pleased with all the world, because his Manchester relations had liked him and he had liked his Manchester relations. Viewed from that happy distance, the Trenchards had been bathed in golden light. He reviewed his recent agitations and forebodings with laughter. "Her fam- ily," he told his relations, "are a bit old-fashioned. They've \J / t/ got their prejudices, and I don't think they liked the idea, at first, of her being engaged — she's so valuable. But they're getting used to it." He arrived in London in the highest spirits, greeted Rocket as though he had been his life-long friend, and going straight up to his room to dress for dinner, thought to himself that he really did feel at home in the old house. He looked at his fire, at the cosy shape of the room, heard a purring, contented clock ticking away, thought for a moment of Moscow, with its puddles, its mud, its dark, un- even streets, its country roads, its weeks of rain. "No, I've found my place," he thought, "this is home." And vet, during dinner, his uneasiness, like a forgotten t/ O ' *-J 200 THE GREEN MIRROR ghost, crept back to him. Henry had a headache, and had gone to bed. "He's not been very well lately," said Aunt Aggie to Philip, "that evening with you upset him, I believe — over- excited him, perhaps. I'm glad you liked Manchester." He could not deny that dinner was a little stiff. He was suddenly aware over his pudding that he was afraid of Mrs. Tren- chard. and that his fear of her that had been vasnie and f o nebulous before his absence was now sharp and defined. He looked at her, and saw that her eyes were anything but f E/ t/ O placid and contented, like the rest of her. "More pudding, Philip ?" she asked him, and his heart beat as though he had received a challenge. Afterwards in the drawing-room he thought to himself: " 'Tis this beastly old house. It's so stuffy" — forgetting that two hours earlier it had seemed to welcome him home. "'We'll be all right when we get down to the country," he thought. Finally he said good-night to Katharine in the dark little passage. As though he were giving himself some desperate reassurance, he caught her to him and held her tightly in his arms a Katie — darling, have you missed me?" "Missed you ? I thought the days were never going to pass." "Katie, I want to be married, here, now, to-night, at once. I hate this waiting. I hate it. It's impossible — Katherine laughed, looking up into his eyes. "I like you to be impatient. I'm so happy. I don't think anything can ever be happier. Besides, you know," and her eyes sparkled — "you may change — you may want to break it off — and then think how fflad vou'll be that we waited." O t/ He held her then so fiercely that she cried out. "Don't say that — even as a joke. How dare you — even as a joke ? I love you — I love you- -I love you." He kissed her mouth again and again, then, suddenly, with a little move- ment of tenderness, stroked her hair very softly, whispering GARTH IN ROSELANDS 201 to her, "I love you- -I love you — I love you — Oh ! how I love von !" t/ That night she was so happy that she lay for many hours staring at the black ceiling, a smile on her lips. He, also, was awake until the early morning. . . . The departure to the station was a terrific affair. There were Mr. Trenchard, senior. Great Aunt Sarah (risen from a bed of sickness, yellow and pinched in the face, very yel- low and pinched in the temper, and deafer than deaf), Aunt Aggie, Aunt Betty, George Trenchard, Mrs. Trenchard, Mil- lie (very pretty), Henry (very sulky), Katherine, Philip, Rocket and Aunt Sarah's maid (the other maids had left by an earlier train) — twelve persons. The train to be caught was the eleven o'clock from Paddington, and two carriages had been reserved. The first business was to settle old Mr. Trenchard and Aunt Sarah. They were placed, like images, in the best corners, Mr. Trenchard saying sometimes in his silvery voice : "It's very kind of you, Harriet/' or "Thank ye, Betty, my dear," and once to Millie, "I like to see ye laughing, my dear — very pretty, very pretty". Aunt Sarah frowned and wrinkled her nose, but was, in her high black bonnet, a very fine figure. Her maid, Clarence, was plain, elderly and masculine in appearance, having a moustache and a stiff linen collar and very little hair visible under her black straw hat. She, however, knew just how Great-Aunt Sarah liked to be. . . . The others in that compartment were Aunt Aggie, George Trenchard (he sat next to his father and told him jokes out of the papers) and Mrs. Trenchard. In the other carriage Katherine and Philip had the corners by the window. Aunt Betty sat next to Philip, Millie and Henry had the farther corners. When the train started, Katherine's heart gave a jump, as it always did when she set off for Garth. 'We're really off. We'll really be in Garth by the evening. We'll really wake up there to-morrow morning." Philip had not seen Henry since his return from Man- 202 THE GREEN MIRROR chester, so lie tried to talk to him. Henry, however, was engaged upon a very large edition of "War and Peace/' and, although he answered Philip's enquiries very politely, he was obviously determined to speak to no one. Millie had Henry Galleon's "Roads" to read, but she did not study it very deeply — Aunt Betty had a novel called "The Rosary" and her knitting; now and then she would break into little scraps of talk as: "But if I moved the bed across lengthways that would leave room for the bookcase," or "I do think people must be clever to make up conversations in books," or "There's Reading". The lovers, therefore, were left to one another. . . . Katherine had upon her lap the novel that had so greatly excited Henry; he had insisted upon her reading it, but now it lay idly there, unopened. That little smile that had hov- ered about her lips last night was still there to-day. Often her eyes were closed, and she might have seemed to be asleep were it not that the little smile was alive — her eyes would open, they would meet Philip's eyes, they would be drawn, the two of them, closer and closer and closer. They talked together, their voices scarcely above a whisper. The day was one of those that are given sometimes, in a fit of forgetfulness, by the gods, at the beginning of March. It was a very soft, misty day, with the sun warm and golden but veiled. Trees on the dim blue horizon were faintly pink, and streams that flashed for an instant before the windows were pigeon-colour. Everywhere the earth seemed to be breaking, flowers pushing through the soil, rivers released from their winter bondage laughing in their new freedom, the earth chuckling, whispering, humming with the glorious excitement of its preparation, as though it had never had a spring in all its life before, as though it did not know that there would yet be savage winds, wild storms of rain, many cold and bitter days. Blue mist — running water — trees with their bursting buds — a haze of sun and rain in the air — a great and happy peace. GARTH IK HOSELANDS 203 Katlierine and Philip, although they saw no one but one another, were aware of the day- -it was as though it had been arranged especially for them. The rise and fall of their voices had a sleepy rhythm, as though they were keeping time with the hum of the train : "I'm so glad/' said Katherine, "that your first view of Glebeshire will be on a day like this." "I'm a little afraid," he answered. "What will you say if I don't like it 2" She seemed really for an instant to be afraid. "But, of course, of course, you will." "Everyone doesn't. Someone told me the other day that either it was desolate enough to depress you for a lifetime or stuffy like a hot-house, and that the towns were the ugliest in the United Kingdom." Katherine sighed and then smiled. "I expect they'd think Manchester the loveliest place on earth," she said. Then, looking at him very intently, she asked him: "Do you regret Russia — the size and the space and the strangeness ? I daresay you do. Do you know, Phil, I'm rather jealous of Russia, of all the things you did before I knew you, I wonder whether I'd have liked you if I'd met you then, whether you'd have liked me. I expect you were very different. Tell me about it. I'm always asking you about Moscow, and you're so mysterious — yes, I believe I'm jealous." Philip looked away from her, out of the window, at the fields with their neat hedges, the gentle hills faintly purple, villages tucked into nests of trees, cows grazing, horses mildly alert at the passing train. For a moment he was conscious of irritation at the tidy cosiness of it all. Then he spoke, dreamily, as though he were talking in his sleep : "Ko. That's all behind me. I shall never go back there again. I don't think of it often, but sometimes I fancy I'm there. Sounds will brina: it back, and I dream sometimes. . . . O J One gets so used to it that it's hard now to say what one did 204 THE GREEN MIRROR feel about it. I had a little flat in a part, of the town called the Arbat. Out of my window I could see a church with sky- blue domes covered with silver stars, there was a shop with food, sausages and all kinds of dried fish, and great barrels of red caviare and mountains of cheese. The church had a cherry-coloured wall, with a glittering Ikon at the gate and a little lamp burning in front of it. There were always some cabs at the end of my street, with the cabmen in their fat, bunched-up clothes sleeping very often, their heads hanging from the shafts. Lines of carts from the country would pass down the street with great hoops of coloured wood over the horses' necks and wild-looking peasants in charge of them. They didn't seem wild to me then — they were quite ordinary. Always just before six the bells at the church would ring, one slow, deep note and a little funny noisy jangle as well — one beautiful and unearthly ; the other like a talkative woman, all human. ... In the autumn there'd be weeks of rain, and the mud would rise and rise, and the carts and cabs go splashing through great streams of water. AVhcn the snow came there'd be fine days and the town on fire, all sparkling and quivering, and every ugly thing in the place would be beautiful. There'd be many days too when the sky would fall lower and lower and the town be like grey blotting-paper and the most beautiful things hideous. Opposite my window there was a half-built house that had been there for three years, and no one had troubled to finish it. There was a beggar at the corner — a fine old man with no legs. He must have made a fortune, because everyone who passed gave him something. It would be fine on a snowy night when the night-watchmen built great fires of logs to keep them warm. "On a starry night I could see the domes of St. Saviour's Cathedral like little golden clouds — verv beautiful." O V "And what was the inside of your flat like?" asked Kath- erine. She had been leaning a little forward, her hands clasped together, deeply interested. "Oh ! very small ! I made it as English as I could. It GARTH IN ROSELAKDS 205 had central heating and, in the winter, with the double win- dows, it got very stuffy. I had English pictures and English books, but it was never very comfortable. I don't know why. Nothing in Russia's comfortable. I had a funny old servant called Sonia. She was fond of me, but she drank ; she was always having relations to stay with her. I would find funny- looking men in the kitchen in the morning. She had no idea of time, and would cook well or badly as she pleased. She liked to tell fairv stories ; she stole and she drank and she */ * lied, but I kept her because I couldn't bother to change her." He stopped — then began again, but now more dreamily than before, as though he'd been carried far away from the train, from England, from Katherine. "Yes — that was it — one couldn't be bothered. One couldn't be bothered about anything, and one didn't need to bother, because no one else bothered either. Perhaps that's just why I loved it, as I see now that I did love it. No one cared for anything but what was in the air — dreams, superstitions, stories. The country itself was like that too — so vague, so vast and boundless, so careless and heedless, so unpractical, so good for dreams, so bad for work, so unfinished, letting so many things go to pieces, so beautiful and so ugly, so depressing and so cheer- ful, so full of music and of ugly sounds ... so bad to live in, so good to dream in. I was happy there and I didn't know it — I was happy and didn't know it," His voice had sunk to a whisper, so that Katherine could not catch his words. She touched the sleeve of his coat. "Come back, Phil, come back," she said, laughing. "You're lost." He started, then smiled at her. "It's all right . . . but it's odd. There are so many things that didn't seem to me to be curious and beautiful then that are so now." Then, looking at Katherine very intently, as though he were calling her back to him, he said : O O •' "But don't talk to me about Russia. It's bad for me. I don't want to think of it. I've left it for ever. And when 206 THE GREEN MIRROR you ask me questions it revives me, as though it still had some power. . . . You say that you're afraid of it — why," he ended, laughing, "I believe I'm afraid of it too — I don't want to think of it. It's England now and Glebeshire and you — and you," he whispered. They were interrupted then by an attendant, who told them that it was time for the first luncheon. Afterwards, when the shadows were lengthening across the fields and the misty sun rode low above the far hills, they sat silently dreaming of their great happiness. It was an after- noon that was to remain, for both of them, throughout their lives, in spite of all after events, a most perfect memory. There are moments in the histories of all of us when we are carried into heights that by the splendour of their view, the fine vigour of their air, the rapture of their achievement offer to us a sufficient reassurance against the ironic powers. We find in them a justification of our hopes, our confidences, our inspirations, our faith. . . . So, for these few hours at least, Katherine and Philip found their justification. This was a moment that two others, also, in that carriage were never afterwards to forget. Millie, under the warm afternoon sun, had fallen asleep. She woke to a sudden, half- real, half-fantastic realisation of Philip. She was awake, of course, and yet Philip was not quite human to her — or was it that he was more human than he had ever been before? She watched him, with her young, eager, inquisitive gaze, over the cover of her book. She watched him steadily for a «/ long time. She had always liked the clean, bullet-shaped head, his black eyes, his sturdiness and set, square shoulders, his colour and his strength. She had always liked him, but to-day, in this sudden glimpse, he seemed to be revealed to her as some- one whom she was seeing for the first time. Millie, in all the freshness of her anticipated attack upon the world, had at this GARTH IN ROSELANDS 207 period very little patience for bunglers, for sentimentalists, for nervous and hesitating souls. Now, strangely, she saw in Philip's eyes some hinted weakness, and yet she did not de- spise him. "I believe," she thought, "he's afraid of us." That discovery came as though it had been whispered to her by someone who knew. Her old conviction that she knew t/ him better than did the others showed now no signs of falter- ing. "I believe I could help him as they none of them can," she thought. "JSTo, not even Katherine." She had, in spite of her determined, practical common-sense, the most romantic idea of love, and now, as she thought of the two of them wrapped up there before her eyes in one another, she felt irri- tated by her own isolation. "I wonder whether Katherine understands him really," she thought. "Katherine's so sim- ple, and takes everything for granted. It's enough for her that she's in love. I don't believe it's enough for him." She had always in very early days felt some protecting, motherly element in her love for Katherine. That protection seemed now to spread to Philip as well. "Oh ! I do hope they're going to be happy," she thought, and so, taking them both with her under her wing, dozed off to sleep again. . . . The other was, of course, Henry. No one could ever call Henry a gay youth. I don't think that anyone ever did, and although with every year that he grows he is stronger, more cheerful and less clumsy and mis- anthropic, he will never be really gay. He will always be far too conscious of the troubles that may tumble on to his head, of the tragedies of his friends and the evils of his country. And yet, in spite of his temperament, he had, deep down in his soul, a sense of humour, an appreciation of his own comic appearance, a ready applause for the optimists (although to this he would never, never confess). "He's a surly brute," I heard someone say of him once — but it is possible (I do not say probable) that he will be a great man one of these days, and then everyone will admire his fine reserve, "the taci- turnity of a great man"; in one of his sudden moments of 208 THE GKEEN MIKKOK confidence he confessed to me that this particular journey down to Glebeshire was the beginning of the worst time in his life — not, of course, quite the beginning. Philip's appear- ance on that foggy night of his grandfather's birthday was that — and he is even now not so old but that there may be plenty of bad times in store for him. But he will know now how to meet them ; this was his first test of responsibility. He had always told himself that what he really wanted was to shoAv, in some heroic fashion, his love for Katherine. Let him be tested, he cried, by fire, stake, torture and the block, and he would ashow them." Well, the test had come. As he sat opposite her in the railway carriage he faced it. He might go up to Philip and say to him : "Look here, is it true ? Did you have a mistress in Moscow for three years and have a son by her ?" But what then ? If Philip laughed, and said : "Why, of course . . . everyone knows it. That's all over now. What is it to you ?" He would answer : "It's this to me. I'm not going to have a rotten swelp of a fellow marry- ing my sister and making her miserable." Then Philip might say: "My dear child — how young you are ! all men do these things. I've finished with that part of my life. But, anyway, don't interfere between me and Katherine, you'll only make her miserable and you'll do no good." Ah ! that was just it. He would make her miserable ; he could not look at her happiness and contemplate his own de- struction of it. And yet if Philip were to marry her and afterwards neglect her, and leave her as he had left this other woman, would not Henry then reproach himself most bit- terly for ever and ever ? But perhaps, after all, the story of that wretched man at the Club was untrue, it had been, per- haps, grossly exaggerated. Henry had a crude but finely-col- oured fancv concerning the morals of the Man of the World. i/ O Had not Seymour dismissed such things with a jolly laugh and "my dear fellow, it's no business of ours. We're all very much alike if we only knew." Had he not a secret envy of GABTIi IN ROSELANDS 209 this same Man of the World who carried off his sins so i with so graceful an air? But now it was no case of an i—* abstract sinner — it was a case of the happiness or unhappiness of the person whom Henry loved best in life. A subtler temptation attacked him. He knew (he could not possibly doubt) that if his parents were told, Philip would have to go. One word from him to his mother, and the fam- ily were rid of this fellow who had come out of nowhere to disturb their peace. The thing was so infernally easy. As he sat there, reading, apparently, his novel, his eyes were on Katherine' s face. She was leaning back, her eyes closed, smiling at her thoughts. What would Katherine do ? Would ;-he leave them all and £0 with him ? Would she hate him. O 7 Henry, for ever afterwards ? Yes, that she would probably do. ... Ah, he was a weak, feeble, indeterminate creature. He could make up his mind about nothing. . . . That eve- ning he had had with Philip, it had been glorious and dis- gusting, thrilling and sordid. He was rather glad that he had been drunk — he was also ashamed. He was intensely relieved that none of the family had seen him, and yet he saw himself shouting to them : "I was drunk the other night, and I talked to rotten women and I didn't care what happened to me. . . . I'm a boy no longer." He hated Philip, and yet, perhaps, Philip was leading him to freedom. That fellow in the novel about the sea and the forests (Henry could see him challenging his foes, walk- ing quietly across the square towards his friend, who was waiting to slay him). He would have admired Philip. Henry saw himself as that fine solitary figure waiting for his opportunity. How grand he could be had he a chance, but life was so lofty, so unromantic, so conventional. Instead of meeting death like a hero, he must protect Katherine . . . and he did not know how to do it. ... As the sun was sinking in a thick golden web that glittered behind the dark purple woods — woods that seemed now to stand like watchers with their fingers upon their lips — the 210 THE GREEN MIRROR train crossed the boundary river. That crossing had been, ever since he could remember, a very great moment to Henry. To-day the recognition of it dragged him away from Philip and Katherine, from everything bnt Glebeshire. He looked across at Katherine instinctively — she, sitting now upright, gazing out of the window, turned as though she had known and smiled at him. They were in Glebeshire, there was the first valley, mysterious, now like a dark purple cup, there the white winding road that went over the hill on to Rasselas, Liskane, Clinton and Truxe, there was the first break in the hills, where you always peered forward ex- pecting to catch a shimmer of the sea, here that cluster of white cottages that, when he had been small, had seemed to be tumbling down the hill, very dangerous to live in ... at last the pause at Carlyon, the last stop before Rasselas. It was quite dark now. The light had suddenly been drawn from the sky, and the earth was filled with new sounds, new scents, new mysteries. The train stopped for a minute be- fore Rasselas, and, suddenly all about it, through the open window there crowded whispers, stealthy movements, the secret confidences of some hidden stream, the murmured greetings of the trees. The train lay there as though it had wanted them all to know how lovely the evening was. On the road that skirted the train a man with a lantern greeted a cart. "Well, good-night to 7ee," a voice said clear and sharp like an invitation ; Henry's heart began to beat furiously. Glebe- shire had welcomed them. With a jerk the train stumbled forward again, and they were in llasselas. The little station, which was of some im- portance because it was 2, junction for Pelynt and therefore also for Eafiel, lay very quietly at the bottom of the wooded hill. A porter went down the train swinging a lantern and crying: "Change for P'lynt. Change for P'lynt." A stream flowed near by, and the scent of a garden flooded the station : there would be already snowdrops and primroses and crocuses. The whole party of them were bundled out on GAETH IX ROSELANDS 211 to the platform — a great pile of luggage loomed in the dis- tance, Heads from the carriage windows watched them, then a pause, a cry, and the train was off, leaving them all high and dry, with the wind blowing round their hair and clothes and ankles like a friendly and inquisitive dog. There was sea in the wind. "Smell the sea I" cried Millie. "I must have left it in the restaurant car," said Aunt Aggie. "Too provoking. I par- ticularly wanted you to read that article, Harriet. I think you might have noticed, Millie . . . you were sitting next to me." "There's Jacob !" Henry, suddenly happy and excited and free from all burdens, cried : "'Hallo ! Jacob ! How are you ? How's everyone ? How's Eebekah ?" Jacob, with a face like a red moon, smiled, touched his hat, stormed at a young man in buttons. "Do 'ee bustle a bit, John. Didn't I tell 'ee the box with the black 'andles ? . . . very comfortable, Mr. 'Enry, sir, thank 'ee, as I 'opes you finds yourself. Been a bit o' sickness around down along in the village . . . but not to 'urt. . . ." Could they all get in ? Of course they could. The luggage was all on the luggage-cart, and Rock and Clarence with it ; a O~ O 7 / silver moon, just rising now above the station roofs, peeping at her, laughed at her serious dignity. "Kb, we'll go on the box, Philip and I," said Katherine. "Of course I shan't be cold. Ko, really, we'd rather, wouldn't we, Philip ? Plenty of room, Jacob." They were off, up the little hill, down over the little bridge and through the little village. Katherine, sitting between Philip and Jacob, pressing her cheek against Philip's rough tweed coat, her hand lying in his under the rug, seemed to slip, dreaming, fulfilling some earlier vision, through space. She had wondered sometimes, in the earlier days, whether there could be any greater happiness in life than that ever- 212 THE GEEEN MIEEOE thrilling, ever-satisfying return to Garth. She knew now that there was a greater happiness. . . . A white world of crackling, burning stars roofed them in ; an owl flew by them through the grey dusk ; the air smelt of spring flowers and fresh damp soil. The stream that had been with them since their entrance into Glebeshire still accom- panied them, running with its friendly welcome at their side. Beyond the deep black hedges cows and horses and sheep moved stealthily: it seemed that thev miffht not disturb the t/ €.' wonderful silence of the night. "Are you warm enough ?" he asked her ; he caught her hand more tightly and kissed her cheek, very softly and gently. She trembled with happiness, and pressed more closely against his coat. "Can you smell the sea yet ? You will when you get to the top of Easselas Hill. This is the high road to Pelynt. It runs parallel with the railway until we get to the cross roads, Pelynt Cross, you know. . . . You'll smell the sea there. You can see it on a clear day. To the left of you there is just Pelynt Moor. It runs for miles and miles, right along by the Drymouth Eoad. . . . Look through the break in the hedge. Do you see that light across the field ? That's John Pollen's cottage. John was murdered just about a hundred years ago. He was an old miser, and some men robbed him, but they never found his head. They say he wanders about still look- ing for it. ... Oh, if this could go on for ever. Philip, are you happy ?" "Happy ?" . . . Ah ! she could feel his body quiver. "Yes, and now we're coining down to the Well. There's a little wood just at the body of the hill. We always call it the Well because it's so dark and green. It's the most famous wood for primroses in all Glebeshire. They'll be coming now. . . . We'll walk here. ... I cried once because I thought I was lost here. They forgot me and went home. Then I was comforted by the postman, who found me and carried me home. . . . Jacob, do you remember ?" GARTH IN ROSELANDS 213 *• 'Ah, Miss Kathie, doan't 'ee think that I'd forget ought about 7ee. Not likely. Arid your mother in a fine takin', poor soul, too. We're a-coming to P'lynt Cross now, sir — as fa- mous as any spot o' ground in the 'ole of Glebeshire, sir — Hup, then! Hup, then — Whey — Oh! oh! Hup, then!" They pulled to the top, leaving the wood in the dip behind them. The wind met them, flinging its salt and freshness in their faces with a rough, wild greeting. Philip could hear suddenly the humming of the telegraph wires, as though they had sprung from their imprisonment in the valley and were chanting their victory. To his left, vague and formless under the starlight, stretched Pelynt Moor, waiting there, scorn- fully confident in its age and strength and power, for day- light. The salt wind flung its arms around them and dragged them forward ; Philip, listening, could hear, very stealthily, with the rhythm of armed men marching, the beating of the sea. • • • "Now we're near — now we're very near. It'll be Garth Cross in a minute. There it is. Now we turn off down to the Almshouses. We don't really come into the village. . . . There are the Almshouses and the Common. . . . Now round the corner. . . . There it is — there's the Gate — the Gate! . . . Oh ! Philip, are you happy ?'' She was crying a very little : her eyes were blurred as they turned up the long drive, past all the rhododendron bushes, past the lawn with the giant oak at the farther end of it, round the curve to the hall door, with Rebekah standing under the porch to welcome them. Philip was down, and had helped her to the ground. She stood a little away from, them all as they laughed and chattered about the door. She wiped her eyes with her gloved hand to stop the tears. Philip was conscious of standing in a long dark hall with stairs at the end of it and a large oak chest with a glass case that contained a stuffed bird taking up much of the space; that, he always afterwards remembered, was his first impres- sion of the house, that it was absurd to put so large a chest 214 THE GREEN MIRROR just there where everyone would knock against it. A misty babel of talk surrounded him : he was conscious of a tall old woman wearing a high, stiffly-starched white cap : she had a fine colour, very dark red cheeks, hair a deep black and flash- ing eyes. She must be between sixty and seventy, but her body was straight and vigorous. This was, he supposed, Re- bekah. He saw, in the background, old Mr. Trenchard being helped up the stairs by Rocket ; he heard Aunt Betty in a happy t\vitter, "Ah, now, this is nice . . . this is nice . . . how nice this is." He heard Mrs. Trenchard's slow, sleepy voice: "No — the train was punctual, Rebekah, quite punc- tual. We had luncheon on the train . . . yes, we were quite punctual." Someone said: "I'll show Philip his room," and George Trenchard, laughing, cried to him: "Come on, Philip, this way — this way." Trenchard, like a boy, bounded up the stairs in front of him. They were old, black, winding and creaking stairs that sighed as you mounted them. Trenchard cried: "To the right now — mind your head!" They turned through a little passage, so low that Philip must bend double and so dark that he could see nothing before him. He put out his hand, touched Trenchard's broad back, and was sur- prised at his sense of relief. Now they walked along another passage, very narrow, white walls with coloured sporting prints hanging on them. "Ah ! here's the Blue Room. Here you are. Hope you'll like it — got a decent view. Brought you hot water ? Ah, yes, there it is. When you've washed come down just as you are. Don't bother to change. . . . It's only supper to-night, you know. . . . Right you are." His room was charming, with cherry-coloured wall-paper on walls that seemed a thousand years old. He flung his win- dows open, and there was the moon, thin, sharp, quivering with light in the sky, and he could hear the stream that had accompanied him ever since his entry into Glebeshire still singing to him. The night air was so sweet, the trees, that sighed and trembled and sighed again, so intimate. There GARTH IN KOSELAJSTDS 215 was an intimacy here that he had never felt in any country before. There was an intimacy and also, for him, at any rate, some strange loneliness. . . . He closed the window. He found his way down into the hall, and there saw Katherine. "Quick !" she cried. "Quick ! I hoped that you'd come down before the others. We've got ten minutes." She was almost dancing with excitement (she his staid, reserved Katherine). She was pulling him by the arm, out through the door, under the porch, into the garden. She ran across the lawn, and he, more slowly, followed her. He caught her and held her close to him. "You love it, Philip — don't you ? You must. Of course you've hardly seen anything to-night. To-morrow we must both get up early, before anyone else, and come down. But look back now. Isn't the house simply- -? Isn't it? Don't you feel the happiness and cosiness and friendliness ? Oh, YOU must ! You must !'; ty "When I've got you I don't want anything. Everything is lovely." "But you're happy now to be here, aren't you ?" "Verv happy.'3 c/ J. JL t/ "And you won't be disappointed, will you ? You must promise me that you won't be disappointed." "I promise you." "And there's so much to show you ! Oh ! it's so wonderful to have all the old places that I've loved so long, to have them all to show you — to share them aL with you. . . . Oh, won- derful, wonderful !" "Yes, I'll share them all with von. But — but . . . Ivath- / «/ erine, darling. No, turn round — come closer. There, like that: I don't want to share you with them. I don't want to share you with anyone or anything." "You don't — vou can't. Of course you can't. I'm all €/ I/ yours — but then this is part of me, so it's all yours too." "And you couldn't live away from it ? You couldn't imag- 2 IB THE GREEX MTKTCOTC ine Laving to be right away from it— if I had to live some- where else ?" "jBut why should you ? You won't have to live somewhere else. And let's not imagine anything. Things are so lovely, d? i/ ClJ C_/ t so perfect, as they are. I don't like imagining things. I can't when this is all so real." "Katie . . . Katie . . . No, come closer. Much closer. I don't care if I do hurt you. I want to. I want you, you, you. It's what 1 said last night. Let's marry soon — not this awful year. I feel — I don't know — I imagine too much. I suppose — But I feel as though you'd escape me, as though they'd all come between and take you away. If once you were mine I'd never care again. We'd stay anywhere, do anything you like. But this is so hard — to wait like this. To see you caring so much for other people, who don't, per- haps, care for me. I want you. I want you — all of you. And I've only got half." "Half !" She laughed triumphantly. "You have all of me — all of me — for ever! Philip, how funny you are ! Why, you don't trust me ! I'd wait for ever if necessary, and never doubt for an instant that anything could come between. I trust you as I trust this place." A voice broke in upon them. Someone called. "Katherine ! Katherine !" Slowly she drew away from him. "That's mother. I must go." He caught her hand. "Stay a little longer. They can wait." "No, it's mother. She wants me. Come on, Phil darling. Supper time. We'll creep out again afterwards." She crossed the lawn, expecting Philip to follow her. But he staved there under the oak tree. He heard the voices tj laughing and calling in the lighted house. He was suddenly desperately lonely. He was frightened. . . . He crossed hur- riedly the lawn, and as he walked he knew that what he GARTH IN ROSELAtfDS 217 wanted was that someone, someone who really knew him, should come and comfort him. Before he entered the hall he stopped and looked back into the dark garden. Was there someone beneath the oak, some- one who watched him with an ironical, indulgent smile ? . . . JSTo, there was no one there. But he knew who it was that could comfort him. With a swift, sharp accusation of dis- lovaltv he confessed to himself that it was Anna for whom. «.' €/ during that instant, he had looked. CHAPTEK V THE FEAST SOME entries in Millie's diary: March 12th. Wind and rain like anything. Been in most of the day patching up the screen in my bedroom with new pictures — got them as much like the old ones as possible. Went for an hour's tussle with the wind out to the Cross, and it was fine. Wish I could have got over to Rafiel. The sea must have been fine to-day coming in over the Peak. Father drove Philip over to Polchester in the morning. Felt bored and out of temper in the evening. March 13th. Katie and Philip had their first tiff this morning — at least first I've seen. He wanted her to go off with him for the day. She'd got to stop and help mother with the Merrimans from Polneaton, coming to tea. Mother said / O it didn't matter, but I could see that she was awfully pleased when K. stayed. But if I'd been K. I'd have gone. What does a family matter when one's in love ? and she is in love, more than anyone I've ever seen. But I think she's disap- pointed with Phil for not caring more about Garth, although she never owns it. I'm sorry for him. He wanders about not knowing what to do with himself, and everyone's too busy to think of him. I try, but he doesn't want me, he wants Katherine, and thinks he ought to have her all the time. Aunt Ajyoie makes things worse in everv wav she can. . . . OO o *•.' i/ March 15£7i. Cross all day. Garth isn't quite so nice this time somehow. Is it because of Paris ? I don't think so — it used to make one care all the more. I think Philip upsets one. When you see someone criticising something you've al- 21S THE FEAST 219 ways loved, it makes you hot defending it, but also, although you'd never own it, it makes you see weak spots. Then he stirs my imagination as no one ever has done before. I be- lieve he always sees the place he's not in much more vividly than the place he is. If I were Katie I'd marry him to-mor- row and make sure of him. Not that he isn't in love with her — he is — more every day — but he doesn't want to divide her with us, and she doesn't understand it and we won't have it — so there you are ! March 16th. Henry very queer to-day. I wish they'd send him to Oxford or do something with him. It's so hard on him to let him hang around doing nothing — it's so bad for him, too. I think he hates Philip, but is fascinated by him. He took me into the garden after lunch to-day as though he were going to tell me something very important. He was so very mysterious, and said I could advise him, and he was dreadfully worried. Then he suddenly stopped, said it was nothing, and wasn't it a fine day ? I know I shall kill Henry one day. He thinks he's so important and has got a great destiny, whereas he can't even keep his face clean. So I told him, and then I wanted to hug him and comfort him. I'm really awfully fond of him, but I do wish he was nice and smart like other men. March 17th. Had a long walk with Philip this afternoon. Really I do like him most tremendously, partly, I think, be- cause he always treats me as though I'd come out years ago and knew all about everything. He talked all the time about Katharine, which was natural enough, I suppose. He said (what he'd told me in London) that he was frightened by her idea of him, and wished she thought him more as he was. He said he hated a long engagement, that he wished it were over — then he said that he was a poor sort of fellow for any- one so fine as Katherine, and I said that I didn't think it did to be too humble about oneself and that I always made myself out as grand as I could in my mind. He said that it was Russia made one like that, that after 220 THE GREEN MIREOE you'd been in Russia a little you doubted everyone and every- thing, most of all yourself. I said that I thought that rather flabby . . . but I do like him. I don't think Katie ought to insist so much on his liking Garth. She'll frighten him off it altogether if she does that. March 19£/i. Rachel Seddon arrived. Mother asked her down. She doesn't generally come at this time, and she's only just back from abroad, but I think she wants to see how the engagement's getting on. Of course she doesn't like Philip — you can see that in a moment — and of course he knows it. But he wants to make her like him. I wish he didn't care so much whether people like him or no. Henry quite his old self to-night, and we danced (I tried to teach him a cake-walk) in my room, and smashed a lamp of Aunt Aggie's- -I'd quite forgotten her ceiling was my floor. The house is awfully old and shaky — letter from Rose La Touche — Paris does seem funny to think of here. . . . Part of a letter that was never posted — "I haven't written to you all these weeks because I was determined not to write to Russia until I was settled and happy and married for life. Then, also, you yourself have not written. Have you all, over there, forgotten me? Rus- sians never do write letters, do they \ I don't suppose I ought to be disappointed — you warned me. If I'd forgotten all of you there — but I haven't. I thought for a time that I had, but I haven't . . . then a bell rings, and all the servants troop in and kneel down in a row with their heels up, and George Trenchard reads a bit out of the Xew Testament and, very fast, a prayer about 'Thy humble servants', and he has his eye on the weather out of the window all the time. After- wards there is the Post — also eggs, bacon, marmalade, brown bread and white and the family arriving one by one with 'sorry I'm late!' Fancy a Russian saying: 'Sorry I'm late' ! ... so the day's begun. Afterwards, everyone has their own especial job. I don't knowT what my especial job is supposed THE FEAST 221 to be. George lias his writing arid the whole place — fences, weeds, horses, clogs — anything yon like. He fancies himself Walter Scott at Abbotsford, and is as happy as the day is long; Mrs. Trenchard has the village and the inside of the house (with Katherine her lieutenant). There is no living soul from the infant of a week to the old man of ninety-seven (John Wesley Moyle — he sees visions) who does not have his or her life exactly and precisely arranged. Mrs, Trenchard has a quiet hypnotic power that fills me with terror, because I know that I shall soon be ranged with all the others. She is kindness itself I am sure, and no cloud passing across the sun?s face makes less sound — and vet she has always her wav. U V V Oh, Paul, old man, I'm frightened of her as I have never been of anvone before. When I see her here I want to run. I V had a horrible dream last night. The terror of it is with me still. I thought that I said good-night to everyone and went up to my bedroom. To my surprise I found Mrs* Trenchard there, and instead of my usual bed was an enormous feather- bed— an enormous one stretching from wall to wall. 'You will sleep on that to-night,' said Mrs. Trenchard, pointing to it. In some way I knew that if I once lay down upon it I should never get up again. I said 'No, I would not lie down.' 'I think you'd better,' she said in her slow way. 'I think you'd better.' 'No !' I cried, 'I defy you !' Instantly the feather-bed like a cloud rose, filled the room, was above me, under me, around me. It pressed in upon me. I tore at it, and the feathers floated in a great stifling fog against my eyes, up my nose, in my mouth. I screamed for mercy, I fought, I fell, I was suffocating, death was driving down upon me ... I woke. There's nonsense for you ! And yet not such nonsense neither. On a stuffy day here, when every- thing steams and the trees and grass and hedges close up about the house like an army, when Mrs. Trenchard, with Kather- ine, is arranging meals and lives, birth and death, when, try- ing to escape down one of the lanes, they rise so high above one's head that it's like being drowned in a green bath, I tell 222 THE GKEEN MIREOE vou the feather-bed is not so far away — suffocation seems no f t/ idle dream. The fact of the matter is that there's nothing here for me to do. It didn't matter having nothing to do in Russia — although, as a matter of fact, I always had plenty, because no one else had anything to do that couldn't be stopped at any moment for the sake of a friend, or a drink, or a bit of vague thinking. I suppose it's the order, the neat- ness, the punctuality and, at the same time, the solid, matter- of-fact assumption that things must be exactly what they look (which they never are) that fusses me. But really of course I came down here to make love to Katherine — and I only get a bit of her. She cherishes the faith that I want the family as badly as I want her, and that the family want me as badly as she does. She has got a thousand little duties here that I had never reckoned on, and they are like midges on a sum- mer's evening. I would throw myself into their life if they would let me, but there doesn't seem any real place for me. It's fighting with shadows. George Trenchard takes me for drives, Millie, Katherine' s sister, takes me for walks — Katie herself is, I do believe, with me whenever she can be. ... I ought to be satisfied. But only last night Great Aunt Sarah, who is in her dotage (or pretends to be), said, in the drawing- room to Millie, in a loud whisper, 'Who is that young man, my dear, sitting over there ? I seem to know his face.' That sort of thing doesn't exactly make you feel at home. With all this, I feel the whole time that they are criticising me and waiting for me to make some big blunder. Then they'll say to Katherine, 'You see, my dear P Oh, of course, I'm an ass to make a fuss. Any sensible fellow would just wait his year, marry Katherine and say good-bye to the lot. But I shan't be able to say good-bye to the lot. That's the whole business . . . partly because I'm weak, partly because Katherine adores them, partly because that is, I believe, Mrs. T.'s plan. To absorb me, to swallow me, to have me ever afterwards, somewhere about the place, a colourless imitation of the rest of them. So they'll keep Katie, and I'm not important THE FEAST 223 enough to matter. That's her plan. Is she stronger than I ? Perhaps after all I shall snatch Katherine from them and escape with her — and then have her homesick for ever after. . . . Why am I always imagining something that isn't here ? I/ c O O O Russia poisoned my blood — sweet poison, but poison all the same. You'll understand this letter, but if George Trenchard, or indeed any ordinary sensible Englishman were to read it, what an ass he'd think me ! 'If he thought more about the girl he was going to marry than about himself he wouldn't have all this worry.' But isn't it just that. If, in nine months from now, I, swallowed whole by Mrs. T., marry / / t/ / «/ Katie, will that be much fun for her ? I shall be a sort of shadow or ghost. I can see myself running Mrs. Trenchard's errands, hurrying down to be in time for breakfast (although she never scolds anyone), sometimes waking, seeing myself, loathing, despising myself. Ah ! Anna would understand . . . Anna, even when she laughed, understood . . . Anna . . . I don't think I shall send this. I'm determined to drive you all from me until, in a year's time, I can think of you safely again. I described Moscow to Katherine in the train, and speaking of it, has reminded me . . ." Katherine could not remember that there had ever been a year since her eighth birthday when she had missed "The Feast" at Rafiel. ""The Feast" was held always on the 24th of March, unless that day were a Sunday: it had been held, old Dr. Pybus, the antiquarian of Pelynt, said, ever since Phoenician days. To Katherine the event was the crowning day of the spring. After the 24th there would be, of course, many cold, blustering days: nevertheless the spring, with primroses, violets, anemones thick in the four valleys that ran down to Rafiel, the sky blue with white clouds like bubbles, the stream running crystal-clear over the red soil, the spring was here, and "The Feast" was its crowning. For the fishermen and their families "The Feast" meant a huge tea in the Schools, great bonfires on the Peak, and a 224 THE GREEN MIRROR dance on the fish-market, a drink at 'The Pilchards/ and, above all, for the younger men and women, love and engage- ments. It was on "The Feast" day that the young men of Rafiel asked the young women whether 'they would walk out', and the young women said 'yes' or 'no' according to their pleasure. On a fine night, with the bonfires blazing to the sky and showers of golden sparks like fire-flies over the quiet sea, there was no happier village in the world than Rafiel. In its little square harbour the stars, and the fires and the amphi- theatre-shaped village looked down and the ghosts of the Phoenicians peered over the brow of the hill, sighed for the old times that they once knew, and crept at last, shivering, back into their graves. This was to be the greatest "Feast" that Katherine had ever known, because Philip was, of course, to be with her. It was to be, for them both, the crowning of their love by the place, the soil, the good Glebeshire earth. To Katherine it seemed that if anything untoward happened on this day, it would be as though Glebeshire itself rejected them. She would confess to no one how solemn it seemed to her. . . . Uncle Tim was in charge of the party. Timothy Faunder had not, for many, many years missed a "Feast" ; thither he went, his outward appearance cynical and careless as ever, but obeying, inwardly, more sacred instincts than he would acknowledge. He would be in charge of Katherine, Millie, Philip, Rachel- -Henry did not care to go. The 24th of March was wonderful weather. Uncle Tim, coming over from his house up the road, to luncheon, said that he had never seen a finer day. He said this to his sister Harriet, standing before the window of her little room, look- ing down upon the lawn that reflected the sunny shadows like a glass, looking down upon the clumps of daffodils that nodded their heads to him from the thick grass by the garden wall. Harriet was very fond of her brother ; she had an inti- mate relationship with him that had never been expressed in words by either of them. She was a little afraid of him. She THE FEAST 225 was sitting now writing notes. She did not pause as she talked to him, and sometimes she rubbed the side of her nose with her fingers in a puzzled way. She wrote a large sprawl- ing hand, and often spelt her words wrongly. This conversation was before luncheon. "Well, Harriet," Tim said. "How are you ?" She looked up for a moment at his big, loose, untidy body, his shaggy beard, his ruffled hair. "Why do you never brush your hair, Tim ? It's such a bad example for Henry. And you're standing in the light. . 0 0 Thank you. . . . Oh — I'm very well. Why didn't you come in last night, as you said you would? . . . Yes, I'm quite well, thank you." "I went walking," said Timothy. "I do brush my hair, only I am not going to put grease on it for anybody . . . How do you like the young man ?" Mrs. Trenchard nodded her head several times as though she were adding up a sum. "He likes it here, I think, although of course it must be quiet for him — 'And if Tuesday- -isn't convenient — suggest — another day — next week !' "So you don't like him even so much as you expected to ?" "No." She answered quite abruptly, spreading her large hand flat out upon the table as though, by her sudden pounce, she had caught a fly. "He's weaker than I had fancied, and vainer. . . . More insignificant altogether. . . . Miss Pro- pert, The Close, Polchester. . . ." "He's weak, yes," said Tim, staring down upon his sister. "But he isn't insignificant. He's weak because his imagination paints for him so clearly the dreadful state of things it would be if affairs went wrong. He wants then terribly to make them right. But he hasn't the character to do much himself, and he knows it. A man who knows he's weak isn't insignifi- cant." Mrs. Trenchard made no reply. "Well, what are you going to do about it ?" at last said Tim. 226 THE GREEN MIKROE "Oh, he'll marry Katherine of course." "And then ?" "And then they'll live here. . . . 'Dear Canon, I wonder whether . . .'— "And then «" "And then — why then it will he just as it is now." "Oh! I see!" Timothy turned his hack upon her, staring down upon all the green that came up like a river to the walls of the house. His eyes were grave, his hack square, his hands locked tight. He heard the scratching of his sister's pen — otherwise there was deep silence about them. He wheeled round. "Harriet, look here! I've never — no, I think, never — asked you a favour." She turned in her chair and faced him, looking up to him with her wide, rather sleepy, kindly eyes — now a little humor- ous, even a little cvnical. b "No, Tim — never," she said. "Well, I'm going to ask you one now." "Yes ?" Her eves never flickered nor stirred from his. t/ "It's this. I like the young man — like him, for God knows what reason. I think I must myself once have seen the world as he does. I know I believed that it could be such a splendid world with such a little effort — if only everyone were nice to everyone. I understand young Philip--I believe that this is a crisis in his life and in Katharine's. There are three pos- sible endings to the engagement. He can marry her, carry her off and live his own life. He can marry her, not carry her off and live your life. The engagement can break down, and he disappear back to where he came from. You love Katherine, vou are determined not to lose her, therefore vou / t/ * intend to make the first impossible. You see that Katherine is so deeply attached to him that it will break her heart if he e;oes — therefore the last is not to be. There remains only the , second. To that vou devote all your energies. You are quite «/ «. selfish about it. You see only yourself and Katherine in the THE FEAST 227 matter. You see that he is weak and afraid of you. . . . You will break him in, then turn him into the paddock here to graze for the rest of his life. It would serve you right if Katherine were to run away with him." "She won't do that," said Mrs. Trenchard quietly. "Who knows ? I wish she would, hut she's faithful, faith- ful, faithful down to the soles of her shoes. . . . Bless her !" Mrs. Trenchard smiled. "Dear Tim. You are fond of her, I know. . . . There's the luncheon-hell." "Wait a minute." He stood over her now. "Just listen. I helieve you're wrong about Katherine, Harriet. She's old- fashioned and slow compared with the modern girl — we're an old-fashioned family altogether, I suppose. It's the first time she's been in love in her life, and, as I said just now, she's faithful as death — but she'll be faithful to him as well as to you. Let him have his fling, let him marry her and carry her off, go where he likes, develop himself, be a man she can be proud of ! It's the crisis of his life and of hers too — perhaps of yours. You won't lose her by letting her go off with him. She'll stick to you all the more firmly if she knows that you've trusted him. But to keep him here, to break his spirit, to govern him through his fear of losing her — I tell you, Har- riet, you'll regret it all your life. He'll either run away and break Katie's heart or he'll stav and turn into a characterless, n ' spiritless young country bumpkin, like thousands of other young fellows in this county. It isn't even as though he had the money to be a first-class squire — just enough to grow fat (he's rather fat now) and rotten on. Worse than dear George, who at least has his books. "And he isn't a stupid fool neither . . . he'll always know he might have been something decent. If I thought I had any influence over him I'd tell him to kidnap Katie to-morrow, carry her up north, and keep her there." Mrs. Trenchard had listened to him with great attention ; her eyes had never left his face, nor had her body moved. 228 THE GREEN MIEEOE She rose, now, very slowly from her chair, gathered her notes too-other carefully, walked to the door, turned to him, saving: O t. •> e/ O "How you do despise us all, Tim !" then left the room. After luncheon they started off. Philip, sitting next to Katherine in the waggonette, was very silent during the drive ; he was silent because he was determined that it was on this afternoon that he would tell Katherine about Anna. Without turning directly round to her he could see her profile, her dark hair a little loose and untidy, her cheek flushed with pleasure, her eyes smiling. "No, she's not pretty," he thought. "But she's better than that. I can't see what she's like — it's as though she were something so close to me and so precious that I could never see it, only feel that it was there. And yet, although I feel that she's un- attainable too — she's something I can never hold completely, because I shall alwavs be a little frightened of her." t/ He made this discovery, that he was frightened, quite sud- denly, sitting there on that lovely afternoon ; he saw the shad- ows from the clouds, swooping, like black birds, down over the valley beneath him : far beyond him he saw a thread of yellow running beside the water of the stream that was now blue in the sunshine and now dark under the hill ; there were hosts of primroses down there, and the hedges that now closed the carriage were sheeted with gold : when the hedges broke the meadows bevond them flowed, through the mist, like screen u O / O clouds, to the hazy sea ; the world throbbed with a rhythm that he could hear quite clearly behind the clap-clap of the horses' hoofs — 'hum — hum — hum — hum'- The air was warm, with a little breath of cold in it ; the dark soil in the ditches glistened as though, very lately, it had been frozen. Riding there through this beautiful day he was frightened. He was aware that he did not know what Katherine would do when he told her. During his years in Russia he had grown accustomed to a world, inevitably, recklessly, voluble. Rus- sians spoke, on any and every occasion, exactly what was in THE FEAST 229 their mind ; they thought nothing of consequences whether to themselves or any other ; their interest in the ideas that they were pursuing, the character that they were discussing, the situation that they were unravelling, was always so intense, so eager, so vital that they would talk for days or weeks, if necessary, and lose all sense of time, private feelings, restraint and even veracity. Philip had become used to this. Had Katherine been a member of a Russian family he would, two days after his engagement, have had everything out with them all — he would have known exactly where he stood. With the Trenchards he did not know anything at all ; from the mo- ment of his engagement he had been blindfolded, and now he felt as though in a monstrous game of "Blind Man's Buff" he were pushed against, knocked on the elbows, laughed at, bumped against furniture, always in black, grim darkness. Since he had come down to Garth he had lost even Katherine. He felt that she was disappointed in some way, that she had never been quite happy since their journey together in the train. Well, he would put everything straight this afternoon. He would tell her about Moscow, Anna, all his life — tell her that he could not, after their marriage, live at Garth, that it would stifle him, make him worthless and useless, that she must show him that she definitely cared for him more than for her familv. . . . t/ He felt as though, with a great sweeping stroke of his arm, all the cobwebs would be brushed away and he would be free. He rehearsed to himself some of the things that he would say : "You must see, dear, that the family don't like me. They're jealous of me. Much better that we go away for a year or two — right away — and allow them to get used to the idea. Then we can come back." But what would she say about Anna ? Did she know any- thing about men, their lives and affairs? Would her fine O / picture of him be dimmed ? He hoped a little that it would. He wanted simply to love her, that she should understand him and that he should understand her, and then they two 230 THE GREEK MIRROR together (the world, Garth, the Trenchards blown to tho wind) should — "That's Tredden Cove, that dip beyond the wood/7 said Katherine. "We used to go there — " Yes, he was frightened. He felt as though this afternoon would be the crisis of his life. (There had been already a great many crises in his life.) He was impatient ; he wanted to begin, now, in the waggonette. He could imagine turning to her, saying : "Katie, darling, I want to tell you- He was conscious that Lady Seddon was watching him. "Jolly day, isn't it ?" he said. He thought to himself. "She hates me as the others do." They had come to the Cross-Roads. Jacob put on the drag, and they began, very slowly, to creak down a precipitous hill. The fantastic element in the affair that Philip had been ex- pecting as a kind of reply to his own sense of his personal ad- venture seemed to begin with this hill. It resembled no ordi- nary hill ; it plunged down with a sudden curve that seemed to defy the wheels of any carriage; on their right the bank broke sheer away far down to one of the Rafiel four valleys, vivid green now with tufted trees. There was no fence nor wall, and one slip of the wheels would have hurled the car- riage over. At a turn of the road a cluster of white cottages, forming one figure together as though they had been a great stone flung from the hill-top by some giant, showed in the valley's cup. At his sense of that remoteness, of that lifting wildness of the rising hills, at the beauty of the green and grey and silver and white, he could not restrain a cry. Katherine laughed. "That's Blotch End," she said. "One turn and we're at the bottom." The carriage wheeled round, crossed a brown bridge and had started down the road to Rafiel. . . . On one side of the road was a stream that, hur- rying down from the valley, hastened past them to the sea ; on the other side of them a wooded hill, with trees like sentinels against the sky — then the village street began, ugly at first, as are the streets of so many Glebeshire villages, the straight, THE FEAST 231 uniform houses, with their grey slate roofs, now and then hideous-coloured glass over the doorways, and, ugliest of all, the Methodist chapel with '1870' in white stone over the door. But even with such a street as this Rafiel could do something: the valley stream, hidden sometimes by houses, revealed itself suddenly in chuckling, leaping vistas. Before the houses there were little gardens, thick now with daffodils and prim- roses and hyacinths : through the deep mouth of the forge fires flamed, and a sudden curve of the street brought a bridge, a view of the harbour and a vision of little houses risino;, tier ~7 on tier, against the rock, as though desperately they were climbing to avoid some flood. This contrast of the wild place itself, with the ugly patches of civilisation that had presented themselves first, was like the voice of the place chuckling at its visitors' surprise. First the row of villas, the tailor's shop with a pattern pic- ture in the window, the sweet shop, the ironmonger's — now this sudden huddle of twisted buildings, wildly climbing to the very sky, a high, rugged peak guarding the little bay, two streams tossing themselves madly over the harbour ridges, the boats of the fleet rocking as though dancing to some mys- terious measure, a flurry of gulls, grey and white, flashing, wheeling, like waves and foam against the sky, the screaming of the birds, the distant thud of the sea . . . this was Rafiel. They left the carriage and turned to go back to the schools, where the tea had already begun. Katherine slipped her arm into Philip's : he knew that she was waiting for him to speak about the place, and he knew, too, that she was not expecting his praise as confidently as she would have expected it three weeks ago. A little of her great trust in him was shadowed by her surprise that he had not surrendered to Glebeshire more completely. Now he could tell her that it was to the Trenchards and not to Glebeshire that he had refused to surrender. She could not tell, of course, that all his attention now was fixed on his determination to tell her everything as soon as he 232 THE GREEN MIRROR was alone. Walking with him up the road was that secret figure who attends ITS all — the fine, cherished personality whom we know ourselves to be. To Philip, more than many others, was the preservation of that secret personality essential. He was, this afternoon, determined to live up to the full height of it. In the schools, at two long tables, the whole village was feeding : the room was steaming with heat : huge urns at the ends of the tables were pouring out tea with a fierce, scornful indifference, as though they would show what they could do but despised their company. The fishermen, farmers, their wives and families, shining with soap, perspiration and ex- citement, sat, packed so tightly together that eating seemed an impossibility: there were plates of bread and butter, saffron buns, seed-cake piled up and running over: there were the ladies of the village, who said : "Now, Mr. Trefusis, do try another," or "Mary's rather tired, I think, Mrs. Maxwell. Shall I lift her down ?" or "Well, Mrs. Pascoe, out and about again, I see," or "How's the new cottage, Henry ? Better than the old one, I expect." From the other side of the world came : "Aw, thank 'ee, Ma'am — not so bad, thank 7ee. Up to Glossen's Farm they 'ad it praper wild, so they tell me" -"Yes . . . true enough. All over spots 'er arms was, poor worm" -"Didn't worry we, thank 'ee, Miss. Marnin' or evenin all the same to we . . . Ah, yes, poor Mr. Izards- -'e did suffer terrible, poor dear. . . ." Philip perceived with a sense of irritated isolation how in- stantly and how easily the other members of his party were swallowed up by the Ceremony. He himself was introduced to a prim young woman in a blue hat, who flung remarks to him over a tea-tray and seemed to regard his well-cut clothes with contempt. The fishermen did not look happy in their stiff Sunday clothes, but he liked their faces. They reminded him more of Russian peasants than any people whom he had THE FEAST 233 seen since his landing in England. No, he must not think about that . . . Russia was banished for ever. Uncle Timothy, Millie, even Lady Seddon were warmly welcomed, but Katherine was adored. He understood, per- haps for the first time, what that place must mean to her. They called her 'Miss Kathie', they shouted to her across the room, they cracked jokes with her; an old man, with a long white beard like a prophet, stood up and put his hand on her shoulder as he talked to her. Once she broke away from them and came to him. "Phil, I want you to come and be introduced to a great friend of mine," she said. He followed her, feeling that all eyes watched him, with criticism and even with hostility, A large, immensely broad man, in a navy blue suit, with a red, laughing face, hair cut very close to his head, and eyes of the honestest, stood up as they came across. He looked at Katherine with the devotion and confidence of a faithful dog. "This is Mr. Richard Curtis," Katherine said. "He used to pick up shells for me when I was three. He has a boat here with his brother. He's always in good spirits, aren't you, Dick, even when you scald your arm with boiling water ?" This was an allusion to some confidence between them, and as their eyes met, Philip felt a pang of ridiculous jealousy. The man's face was naming, and his eyes were more devoted than ever. He held out a large, horny hand to Philip. 'Ex- cuse me, sir," he said. "I'm proud to shake 'ands with the man wot Miss Katherine is goin' to marry. We thought, once on a time, p'raps as she'd always be 'ere, along with we, but wot we want most is fer 'er to be 'appy — and that we knows now she will be. I 'ope you'll be often down — along, sir, in time to come — that is, sir, if you're not goin' to take 'er right away from us." "Why, of course not, Dick," said Katherine. "When we're married we're going to live quite close. You've only got to find us a house." 234 THE GREEN MIREOE Philip knew that he should say something pleasant ; he could think of nothing; he muttered a few words and. then turned away, confused, irritated, embarrassed. What had happened to him ? He was always so pleasant with everyone, especially with strangers ; now, at every turn, he seemed com- pelled by someone stronger than he to show his worst side. aOh, if I can only get Katherine out of all this," he thought passionately, "even for a little time. Then I'll come back another man. To have her to myself. Everything's coming between us. Everything's coming between us. . . ." At last he had his desire. They had left the others. She had led him, out past the row of white cottages, to a rock on the side of the hill, high over the sea, with the harbour below them, the village, curved like a moon in the hills' hollow, behind the harbour, and a little cluster of trees at the hill top striking the blue night sky : opposite them was the Peak rock, black and jagged, lying out into the water like a dragon couchant. Thev could see the plateau above the Peak where t> .L the bonfire was to be, they could see the fish-market silver grey in the evening light, and the harbour like a green square handkerchief with the boats painted upon it. The houses, like an amphitheatre of spectators, watched and waited, their lights turning from pale yellow to flame as the evening colours faded ; crying, singing, laughing voices came up to their rock, but they were utterly, finally remote. She leaned her head against his shoulder, and they sat there in silence. At last, half-dreamily, gazing forward into the sea that, stirred by no wind, heaved ever and again, with some sigh, some tremor born of its own happiness, she talked. "You can see the bonfire and the figures moving around it. Soon the moon will be right above the Peak. . . . Isn't everything quiet ? I never knew last year how different this one would be from any that I had ever known before." She turned half towards him, caught his hand and held it. "Phil, you must be very patient with me. I've felt so much that you were part of me that I've expected you to see things always as I THE FEAST 235 do. Of course that was ridiculous of me. You can't love this place quite as I do — it must take time. . . . You aren't angry with me, are you ?" "Angry ?" he laughed. "Because the closer I get to you — the longer we're engaged, the less, in some ways, I seem to know you. I never realised until you came how shut up as a family we've been, how wrapt up in ourselves. That must be hard for you to under- stand. . . ." "There it goes !" he broke in suddenly. The bonfire leapt into fire: instantly the village glowed with flame, a golden pool burnt beneath the Peak, the houses that had been blue-grey in the dusk now reflected a rosy glow, and whirling, dancing sparks flew up to join the stars. Little black figures were dancing round the blaze ; down on the fish- market other figures were moving, and the faint echo of a fiddle and a horn was carried across the water. Something said to Philip, 'Tell her — now.' He plunged with the same tightening of the heart that he would have known had he sprung from their rock into the pools of the sea below them. He put his arm more tightly around her, and there was a desperate clutch in the pressure of his fingers, as though he were afraid lest she should vanish and he be left with sky, land and sea flaming and leaping be- neath the fire's blaze. "Katie, I've something I must tell you," he said. He felt her body move under his arm, but she only said, very quietly : "Yes, Phil ?" Then in the little fragment of silence that fol- lowed she said, very cosily and securely : "So long as it isn't to tell me that you don't love me any more, I don't mind what it is ?" "No — it isn't that. It's something I should have told you, I suppose, long ago. I would have told you, only it was all so over and done with for me that I couldn't imagine its mut- tering to anyone. I told your father that there was no com- 236 THE GREEN MIRROE plication in my life, and that's true — there is none. There's nothing I have nor think nor do that isn't yours." She said very quietly: "You were in love with someone before you knew me ?" He was surprised and immensely reassured by the quietness and tranquillity of her voice. "That's it — That's it," he said, eagerly, his heart bounding with relief and happiness. "Look here, Katie. I must tell you everything — everything, so that there can't be anything between us any more that you don't know. You see, when I went to Russia first I was very young — very young for my age too. Russia isn't much of a place when you don't know the language and the weather's bad — and I'd gone expecting too much. I'd heard so much about Russia's hospitality and kindness, but I was with English people at first, and most of them were tired to death of Russia, and only saw its worst side and didn't paint it very cheerfully. Then the Russians I did meet had to struggle along in bad French or English ^ C.J C? *^" (it's all rot about Russians being great linguists), and if a Russian isn't spontaneous he isn't anything at all. Then when I did go to their houses their meals simply killed me. They make one eat such a lot and drink such a lot and sit up all night--! simply couldn't stand it. So at first I was aw- fully lonely and unhappy — awfully unhappy." She sighed in sympathy and pressed closer to him. "I'm not the sort of man," Philip went on, "to stand being lonely. It's bad for me. Some men like it. It simply Idlls me. But after about six months or more I knew a little Rus- sian, and I got to know one or two Russians individually. There's one thing I can tell you — that until you know a Rus- sian personally, so that he feels that he's got some kind of personal part in you, you simply don't know him at all. It's so easy to generalise about Russians. Wait until you've made a friend. ... I made a friend, several friends. I be- gan to be happier." THE FEAST 237 Katherine pressed his hand. The bonfire was towering steadily now in a great golden pillar of smoke and flame to heaven. The music of the fiddle and the horn, as though they were its voice, trembled dimly in the air : all the stars were shining, and a full moon, brittle like glass, flung a broad silver road of light across the black Peak and the sea. There was no breeze, but the scent of the flowers from the gardens on the rocks mingled with the strong briny odour of the sea- pinks that covered the ground at their feet. "The spring came all in a moment, like a new scene at the play. I was introduced to some theatre people, who had a house in the country near Moscow. You've no idea of the slackness and ease of a Russian country house. People just come and go — the doors are all open, meals are always going on — there's always a samovar, and sweets in little glass dishes, and cold fish and meat and little hot pies. In the evening there was dancing, and afterwards the men would just sleep about anywhere. I met a oirl there, the first Eussian woman t/ O who had attracted me. Her name was Anna Mihailovna, and she was a dancer in the Moscow Ballet.7' He paused, but Katherine said nothing nor did she move. "She attracted me because she had never known an English- man before, and I was exactly what she had always thought an Englishman would be. That pleased me then — I wanted, I even felt it my duty, to be the typical Englishman. It wasn't that she admired the typical Englishman altogether: she laughed at me a great deal, she laughed at my having everything so cut and dried, at my dogmatising so easily, at my disliking Russian unpunctuality and lack of method. "She thought me rather ridiculous, I fancy, but she felt motherlv to me, and that's what most Russian women feel to t/ t most men. I was just beginning to love Russia then. I was beginning to dream of its wonderful secrets, secrets that no one ever discovers, secrets the pursuit of which make life one long, restless search. Anna fascinated me — she let me do 238 THE GREEST MIRROR always as I pleased. She seemed to me freedom itself: I fell madly in love with her." Katherine's hand gave then a sudden leap in his; he felt the ends of her fingers pressing against his palm. Some of his confidence had left him: some of his confidence not only in himself but in his assurance of the remoteness of his story and the actors in it. He felt as though some hand were dragging him back into scenes that he had abandoned, situations that had been dead. The fire and the sea were veiled, and his eyes, against their will, were fastened upon other visions. "That year was a very wonderful one for me. We took a flat together, and life seemed to be realised quite completely for me. This, I thought, was what I had always desired . . . and I grew slack and fat and lazy — outside my business — I always worked at that decently. Early in the next year we had a boy. Anna took him with the same happy indifference that she had taken me : she loved him, I know, but she was outside us all, speculating about impossibilities, then sud- denly coming to earth and startling one with her reality. I loved her and I loved Moscow — although sometimes too I hated it — but we used also to have the most awful quarrels ; I was angry with her, I remember, because I thought that she would never take me seriously, and she would laugh at me for wanting her to. I felt that Russia was doing me no good. Our boy died, quite suddenly, of pneumonia, and then I begged her to marry me and come and live in England. How she laughed at the idea ! She didn't want to be married to anyone. But she thought that perhaps England would be better for me. She did not seem to mind at all if I went. That piqued me, and I stayed on, trying to make myself es- sential to her. I did not care for her then so much as for my idea of myself, that she would break her heart if I went. But she knew that — how she would laugh as she looked at me. . . . She refused to take me seriously. Russia was doing me harm -I got slack, sleepy, indifferent. I longed for England. The chance came. Anna said that she was glad for me to go, THE FEAST 239 and laughed as she said it. I took my chance. . . . I've told you everything/' he suddenly ended. He waited. The tune across the water went : 'La-la-la, la, la-la-la-la, la, la.7 Many, many little black figures were turn- ing on the fish-market. The blaze of the bonfire was low and its reflection in the sea smoking red. When he had finished Katherine had very gently drawn her hand away from his, then suddenly, with a little fierce gesture, pushed it back again. "What was your boy's name ?" she asked, very quietly. "Paul." "Poor little boy. Did you care for him very much ?" "Yes, terriblv." ti "It must have been dreadful his dying." He felt then a sudden dismay and fear. Perhaps, after all, she was going to dismiss him ; he fancied that she was retreat- ing from him — he felt already that she was farther away from him than she had ever been, and, with a desperate urgency, his voice trembling, his hand pressing her arm, he said : "Katie — Katie — You're disgusted with me. I can feel it. But you must go on loving me — you musi, you must. I don't care for anything but that. All men have had affairs with women. It's all dead with me, as though it had been another man. There's no one in the world but you. I- -I — " His hand shook; his eyes, if she could have seen them, were strained with terror. She turned to him, put her arms round his neck, drew his head towards her, kissed him on his eyes, his mouth, his cheeks. "Phil — Phil," she whispered. "How little you understand. My dear — my dear." Then raising her eyes away from him and staring again in front of her, she said : "But I want to know, Phil. I must know. What was she like ?" "Like ?" he repeated, puzzled. 240 THE GKEEN MIEEOK "Yes. Her appearance,, her clothes, her hair, everything. I want to be able to see her — with my own eyes — as though she were here. . . ." He stared at her for a moment — then, very slowly, almost reluctantly, he began his description. . . . CHAPTEK VI SUNDAY ON no day of the year — spring, summer, autumn, or winter, did any inhabitant of Garth House rise before Rebekah. Grimly complete, starch and stiff and taciturn, she would be about the dim house, feeling nothing of the cold blackness of a winter morning, finding apparently no pleasure in the beauty of a summer dawn. Her business was with the House — human beings (yes, Trenchards as well as the rest) she despised — for Houses she could feel reverence . . . they were stronger than she. Upon the Sunday morning that followed the "Feast" at Rafiel, very early indeed, she was moving about the passages. Looking out on to the lawn and bushes, wet with mist, she knew that it would be a bad day. . . . Weather mattered to her nothing: people (although the Trenchards might think otherwise) mattered to her nothing. Her business was with the House. . . . That Sunday began badly for Aunt Aggie — and, therefore, for everyone else. Before she woke — in the dusty labyrinth of her half-waking dreams — she knew that her tooth was aching. In her dreams this tooth was of an enormous size, holding, although it was in form and figure a veritable tooth, a huge hammer that it brought down, with a regular beat, upon Aunt Aggie's jaw. She screamed, struggled, fought, awoke — to find that the tooth had receded to its proper place and size, was still faintly beating, but not aching — only threatening. This threat was, in its way, more terrible than 241 THE GREEN MIRROR a savage ache. When would the ache begin ? Ah, here it was ! . . . no, only the throb. . . . Would hot or cold food irritate it ? Would the wind ? . . . She got out of bed and drew her blind. Her clock told her that the hour was seven. Why had Annie not called her ? Annie had overslept herself — what was it to Annie if Aunt Aggie were late for Early Service ? But it must be something to Annie. Annie must be warned. Annie . . . Aunt Aggie was conscious that she had a headache, that the weather was abominable, and that crossing through the wood to the church would certainly start the tooth. But she was resolved. Very grimly, her mouth tightly closed, her heart beating because she was expecting that, at every moment, that tooth. . . . Aunt Aggie had her bath, dressed, informed Annie, who came, very greatly agi- tated, at half-past seven, that this would not be the last she heard of it, walked off to church. During the singing of the collection hymn her tooth leapt upon her. ... It came to her like some malign and secret enemy, who would influence her not so deeply through actual pain as through his insistence on what, please God, he would do afterwards. She hurried home to breakfast through the wet, grey morning, saying to herself: "It shall not ache! I forbid it to ache! You hear me ! You shall not !" and always that sinister whisper replied in her ear : "Wait. Just see what I'll do to you in a mo- ment." In her bedroom some iodine, which she applied to her gum, reduced the inside of her mouth to sawdust: through the ' <>_-' dried discomfort of it all her enemy still beat at her heart ironically. She was determined that the tooth should not alter her day. She knew how easily ordinary human beings succumbed— sitch weakness should not be hers. Nevertheless her love of honesty compelled her to admit that, this morning, the house looked horrible. It had, as she had often told Harriet, been always overcrowded with 'things'- -with mats and jars and pots and photographs, old books, magazines, ink-bottles, china SUNDAY 243 • ornaments, stones and shells, religious emblems, old calendars, and again photographs, photographs, photographs. ... It was not that the house was definitely untidy, but that once a thing was there, there it remained. The place looked like home, because it was filled with properties that any new- comer would instantly discard. Everything was dim and faded — carpets, curtains, books, pictures ; Katherine, Millie, Henry could remember how the water-colour of "Rafiel Beach," the photograph of Trezent Head, the dining-room marble clock, surmounted by the Goddess Diana minus her right leg, the book-case in the drawing-room, with rows and rows of the novels of Anthony Trollope (each in three vol- umes), the cuckoo clock in the dark corner on the first land- ing, the glass case writh sea shells in the hall near the hat- rack, the long row of faded Trenchard and Faunder photo- graphs in the drawing-room, the little corner cupboard with the Sunday games in it — Bible Lotto, puzzle map of Pales- tine, Bible Questions andvBible Answers — all these things had been "first there" since the beginning of time, even as the oak 011 the lawn, the rough grass meadows that ran to the very posts of the house, the little wood and the tennis lawn with the brown hole in the middle of it had always been 'there.' Aunt •/ Aggie herself had grown profoundly accustomed to it all- in her heart she would not have had a shell nor a photograph removed from, its place. Nevertheless, upon this grey Sunday morning she was oppressed, almost triumphantly, about her sense of the dingmess and confusion of the house. It was as though she said to herself : "There ! it's not my tooth at all that makes me feel out of sorts with things. It's simply Harriet's inability to put things straight." She found then that everyone was very quiet at breakfast— 'sulky' one could be justified in calling it. Moreover, there were 'sausages again !' Harriet knew perfectly well that Aggie hated sau- sages— nevertheless she persisted, with the devotion of a blind slave to an august ritual, in having, always, sausageS for Sunday breakfast. Aggie was, in spite of her tooth, hungry 244 THE GREEN MIEEOE this morning, but when, with an unconscious self-conscious- ness, during a silence, she said : "No sausage for me, thanks. You know, Betty, that I never care for them.'7 ~No one said : "Have an egg, Aggie: it can be boiled in a moment." Only Harriet, with her attention obviously elsewhere, re- marked carelessly : "We can have the ham in, Aggie, if you like" — to which Aggie could only reply: "You know I dis- like cold ham, Harriet." But, indeed, Sunday breakfast was never a very jolly meal — how could it be ? The hour was throbbing with a conscious- ness of the impending difficulties and problems of the day. There was Church, there was Sunday School, there were callers in the afternoon : there were meals, the verv heavv / i/ u midday meal with roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, tea with a great deal of stiff conversation, something in the manner of Ollendorff, supper, when the chill on the food typified the exhausted spirits of the tired company. During too many years had Henry, Millie, Katherine, and still more Aggie, Betty and Mrs. Trenchard worn Sunday clothes, eaten Sun- day meals, suffered Sunday restraint, known Sunday exhaus- tion for it to be possible for any of them to regard Sunday in a normal, easy fashion. Very right and proper that they should so regard it. I would only observe that if there is to be a thorough explosion of Trenchard, of Faunder tempers- if there is to be, in any kind of way, a "family scene" Sunday will be, almost certainly, the background selected for it. Aunt Aggie, looking around her, on this morning, at her assembled friends and relations, 'thought them all very sulky indeed. Wrapped up entirely in their own selfish thoughts'. . . . The day began badly. Half an hour before church Each el Seddon and Uncle Tim were alone together in the drawing-room. She was standing, prepared and waiting, staring through the windows at the wild meadow that seemed now soaked with moisture, bent before the dripping wind. She was thinking very deeply. She did not at first hear Uncle Tim, and when, turning sud- SUNDAY 245 denly, she saw him, she thought how exactly he suited the day. By his appearance he instantly justified the atrocious weather : he was wearing a rough grey suit and a low flannel collar : his heard and hair glistened, as though the damp had soaked through them, he carried a muddy trowel in his hand. He came hurriedly into the room, as though he were searching for something. Then when he saw Rachel he stopped, put the trowel down on one of the drawing-room chairs, smiled at her, and came across to her. She had never known him very well, but she had always liked him — his genial aloof- ness, the sense that he always gave of absolute independence, cheerful but never dogmatic, pleased her. ISTow she was trou- bled, and felt that he could help her. "What's the matter with Katie ?" she said, abruptly, look- ing at him with sharp but deeply honest eyes. He felt in his tumbled pockets for his pipe and tobacco, then slowly said : "I was just off for worms — I wanted Henry, but I suppose he's going to church. . . . Katie ? . . . Why ?" "I don't know why. I want to know. It's been these last few days — ever since — ever since — Saturday, Friday, Thurs- day— the day at Rafiel. She's unhappy." "The lovers have had a quarrel." "If it were only that ! , . . no, that's not Katie, and you know it isn't. Philip's done something — told her some- thing—" "Ah, you think that because you dislike him." "I don't know that I do — now. I certainly did at first, but now — here ... I don't know. He's so much younger than I'd expected, and he is really trying his best to suit himself to the family and the place. I'm sorry for him. I rather like him after all. But wliat is the matter with everyone ? Why is the house so uncomfortable? Why can't it all be just smooth and easy? Of course we all hated Katie being en- gaged at first — I suppose we thought that she might have done better. But now everyone ought to be used to it: THE GREEN MIRROR instead of being used to it, it's positively 'nervy' the at- mosphere." "It's simply," said Uncle Tim, pressing down his tobacco into his pipe, "the attack by a Young Man with Imagination upon a family without any. The Young Man's weak of course — people with imagination always are — he's weak and impatient, and insists upon everything being perfect. All the family wants is to be let alone — but it will never be let alone again. The break-up is beginning." "The break-up ?" said Rachel. "It's like this. If Harriet catches me smoking here in the morning there'll be a row." He picked up the trowel and waved it. "Nearly the whole of our class in England has, ever since the beginning of last century, been happily asleep. It isn't good for people to have a woman on the throne for sixty years — bless her all the same, and her making a success of it. So we've slept and slept and slept. The Old Lady died. There was the Boer War : there were motor-cars, flying machines, telephones. Suddenly England was an island no longer. She's got to pay attention to other people, other ideas, other customs. She's got to look out of her window instead of just snoozing on the sofa, surrounded by her mid- Victorian furniture. Everything's cracking: new classes are coming up, old classes are going down. Birth is nothing: autocracies are anachronisms. ... A volcano's coining. Everything will be blown sky-high. Then the folk who are left will build a new city — as bad, as stupid, as selfish as the old one, perhaps — but different ... as different as Garth from China and China from Paradise." "And Katherine and Philip ?" said Rachel. "Oh, young Mark's just one of the advance-guard. He's smashing up the Trenchards with his hammer — the same way that all the families like us up and down England are being smashed up. If it isn't a young man from abroad, it's a letter or a book or a telephone number or a photograph or a suicide or a Lyceum melodrama. It doesn't matter what it is. The SUNDAY 247 good old backbone of England bas got spine disease. Wben your good grandmother died your lot went ; now our lot is going. . . . Wben I say going I mean changing." "There was a funny little man," said Rachel, "whom Uncle John used to know. I forget bis name, but he talked in the same way when grandmother died, and prophesied all kinds of things. The world hasn't seemed very different since then, but grandmother was an impossible survival, and her lot went, all of them, long before she did. All the same, if you'll for- give me, I don't think that England and possible volcanoes are the point for the moment. It's Katie I'm thinking about. If she's unhappy now what will she be after she's married to him ?- -If Katie were to make an unhappy marriage, I think it would be the greatest sorrow of my life. I know . . . I've known . . . how easily things can go wrong." "Ah, things won't go wrong." Uncle Tim smiled confi- dently. "Young Mark's a good fellow. He'll make Kather- ine happy all right. jBut she'll have to change, and changing burts. She's been asleep like the others. . . . Oh, yes ! she has ! There's no one loves her better than I, but she's had, in the past, as much imagination as that trowel there. Perhaps now Philip will give her some. She'll lose him if she doesn't wake up. He's restive now under the heavy hands of my dear relations- -He'll be gone one fine morning if they don't take care. Katie must look out. . . ." He waved his trowel in the direction of the garden. "All this is like a narcotic. It's so safe and easy and ordered. Philip knows he oughtn't to be comfortable here. Katie, Millie and Henry are beginning to know it. Even Harriet, Aggie, Betty, George will get a tiny glimmering of it one day. But they're too old to change. That's their tragedy. All the same, you see, before this time next year George will be proposing to take Harriet for a trip abroad- -Italy probably — a thing he's never done since the day of his marriage." And at that very moment George entered, very smart and a 248 THE GREEN MIRROR big and red, with yellow gloves and a flower in his button- hole. "What's that ?" he cried, with his usual roar of laughter. Who says I'll do what ?" "Take Harriet abroad before this time next year," said Tim. "I ? . . . Not much ! . . . We know better than that. England's good enough for us. There isn't a spot in the world to touch this place in the summer — so why should we stir ? You'll be saying we ought to go to Russia next, . . . smoking your beastly pipe in here too. Why don't you dress decently and go to church ?" A Church Invasion followed. The Invasion rustled and listened to the bell that called across the garden. 'Com-ing? . . . Com-ing? . . . Com-ing?' . . . Then 'Come! Come! Come!' and said: "Where's Katie ? . . . It isn't Litany to- day, so there'll be time before lunch. Where's Henry ? . . . We'd better start, the bell's stopping. Just hold my prayer- book a minute, Millie dear, whilst I do this. . . ." Finally the Invasion called: "Katie! Katie! Kather- ine! . . . WVre going!" and a voice, very far away an- swered : "Yes. . . . I'll catch you up ! Go on !" The Invasion left, followed by Uncle Tim, smiling to him- self, the trowel in his hand. The house was very still then, relapsing with a little sigh of content into its Sunday quiet : a bird was chattering gently to itself in the wet garden. Katherine hurried into the drawing-room, her cheeks flushed, buttoning her gloves, her prayer-book under her arm. Her black dress, a little open at the front, had a stiff black lace collar at the back, Elizabethan fashion; now, for the first time in her life, she was wearing something that she had herself thought about and planned. It was for Philip. . . . She looked about the empty drawing-room, then hurried away through the little wood. How unlike her to be late! She was always the first of the party. But to-day she had SUNDAY 249 been dreaming in her bedroom, sitting, with her hands in her lap, looking out of the window, wondering, longing to know . . . ISTo, she was not jealous. Her curiosity had no tinge of jealousy in it. Why should she be jealous ? Was not the thing over, closed ? Had not the woman herself dismissed him? That strange figure in that strange country! The wild town, as he had described it, like a village with towers and towers, gold and green and blue, and the carts with painted roofs and the strange writing on the shop-walls . . . and the woman standing there, in the middle of it. This woman, who had known Philip better than Katherine knew him, whom Philip had madly loved, who had borne Philip a son. She was still living there, loving, now, perhaps some- one else, looking back perhaps with some scorn and some pity and some affection to the days when Philip had kissed her, to the hour when their son had died, to that first meeting in the / ^-> strange country house, where everyone might come and go as they pleased. ISTo, there was no jealousy; but Katherine wanted to have her there, standing in front of her, so that she might study her clothes, her hair, her eyes. Here was a woman whom Philip had madly loved — and he had ceased to love her. Well, he might also cease to love Katherine. But that other woman had dismissed him. Fancy dismissing him ! When one had shared with him such experiences how could one ever let him go? ... Ah, what, wliat was she like? Was her voice soft or harsh ? How did she look when Philip made love to her ? When Philip made love to her. . . . Yes, there was pain in that. Katherine hurried under the low porch of the church. She could hear the voice: 'Wherefore I pray and beseech you, as many as are here present, to accompany me with a pure heart. . . .' As the congregation knelt she slipped into a seat at the back of the church. She had always loved the shabby, ugly little place. It had, for one thing, nothing to boast about — had no fine carvings like the Rafiel Church, no splendid 250 THE GKEEN MIEKOE tombs like the two Dnnstan St. Firths at Poloynt, no won- derful glass like the Porthcullin memorial window at Bor- haze; frankly ugly, whitewashed, with thin narrow grey glass in the side-walls and a hideous purple Transfiguration above the altar, with plain, ugly seats, a terrible modern lec- tern, a shabby nondescript pulpit, a font like an expensive white sweet, and the most shining and vulgar brass tablet commemorating the Garth heroes of the Boer War. ^N"o other church could ever mean so much to Katherine as this, her shabby friend. She was glad that it was no show place for inquisitive tourists to come tramping over with haughty eyes and scornful boasts. It was her own . . . she loved it because strangers would always say: "How hideous !" because she could remember it on wonderful sum- mer evenings when through the open doors the congregation could hear the tinkling sheep-bells and smell the pinks from the Rectory garden, on wild nights when the sea gales howled round its warm, happy security, on Christmases, on Easters, on Harvest Festivals : she loved it on the evenings when, with its lights covering its plainness, the Garth villagers would shout their souls away over "Onward, Christian soldiers" or "For all the Saints" or would sink into sentimental tenderness over "Abide with me" and "Saviour, again to Thy dear name" ; she loved it because here she had been sad and happy, frightened and secure, proud and humble, victorious and de- feated ... as this morning she sank on her knees, bury- ing her face in her hands, she felt at first as though her Friend had found her, had encircled her with His arm, had drawn her into safety. . . . */ And yet, after a little while, her unrest returned. As Mr. Smart and the congregation hurried through the psalms for the day, trying, as it were, to beat one another in the friendly race, Katherine felt again that insistent pressure and pursuit. Her mind left the church : she was back again with Philip at Eafiel . . . and now she was searching that mysterious town for that elusive, laughing figure. Katherine SUNDAY 251 had in her mind a clear picture; she saw a woman, tall and thin, a dark face with black, ironical eyes, hair jet black, a figure alert, independent, sometimes scornful, never tragic or despairing. "If she knew me she would despise me" . . . this thought came flashing like a sudden stream of light across the church. "If she knew me she'd despise me . . . despise me for everything, even perhaps for loving Philip" -and yet she felt no hostility ; of a certainty no jealousy, only a little pain at her heart and a strange conviction that the world was altered now simply because there was a new figure in it. And there were so many things that she wanted to know. Why had Anna dismissed Philip ? Was it simply because she was tired of him ? Was it perhaps for his own sake, because she thought that he was wasting his life and character there. No, Anna probably did not think about his character. . . . Did she still care for him and, now that he was gone, long for him ? Well, Ivatherine had him now, and no one should take him. . . . WTould she, perhaps, write to Philip and try to compel him to return ? Did she think of the son who had died ? Had she much heart or was she proud and indifferent ? "... grant that this day we fall into no sin, neither run into any kind of danger : but that all our doings may be ordered by Thy governance to do that which is right. . . ." Mr. Smart's voice brought back the church, the choir with two girls in large flowered hats, the little boys, Mr. Hart, the butcher, and Mr. Swithan, the grocer, the broad backs in the family pew. Aunt Aggie, Aunt Betty, Henry, Mrs. Tren- chard, Millie, Philip, George Trenchard, Rachel Seddon (the family pew was a hideous box with a door to it, and you could see only the top half of the Trenchards. . . . They, however, could see everything: Mrs. Trenchard could see / t/ tj the choir, and the choir knew it). Because Katherine was never late, therefore was she denied the opportunity of study- ing the Collective Trenchard Back. To-day she had it in front of her, and it seemed, suddenly, to be something with 252 THE GREEN MIRROR which she herself had no concern at all. For an amazing, blinding, and most desolating moment she viewed the Tren- chards as a stranger might view them. Her loneliness was appalling. She belonged to no one. She had no place nor country: her mother and Philip had left her . . . only a strange woman, watching her to see what she would do, laughed at her. As she stood up and Mr. Smart gave out the hymn, she saw that there was a hole in her glove. She felt shabby and hot, and covered the hole with her other hand, be- cause during that moment she was positively, actively con- scious of the other woman's curious, hostile gaze; then, as the hymn began, security came back to her — her heart beat quietly again. "Why were you late, dear ?" said Aunt Aggie, walking back through the wood. "I dawdled." "Dawdled ! How unlike you, dear ! I remember years ago when I dawdled one Sunday mother saying . . . Oh, dear, there it begins again !" "Is your tooth bad?" "Never mind, dear, say nothing about it. The last thing I should wish for would be a fuss. I thought poor Mr. Smart at his very worst this morning. Since his last child was born he's never preached a good sermon. Really, it's difficult to be patient with him." "Have you done anything for it, Aunt Aggie ?" "Iodine. It comes and goes. If it were only steady. . . ." Katherine knew that it was of the utmost importance to be sympathetic, but all that she could think of in her head was, ''How silly to worry about a tooth ! How silly to worry about a tooth ! . . ." She knew at once that Aunt Aggie saw that she was unsympathetic, and that she resented it deeply "Mind you say nothing, dear," she said, as they crossed the lawn. "You know that I hate a fuss." And Katherine, SUNDAY 25 o who had stopped on the grass and was staring at the horizon, did not even answer. Then Aunt iBetty came up and said: '"What a delightful sermon ! Mr. Smart gets better and better." Aunt Aggie did not trust herself to speak. Meanwhile Philip also had been unhappy. He did frankly hate an English Sunday, and to-day the damp-grey heaviness overwhelmed him, so that he was almost melodramatic in his resentment. Four days now had passed since the "Feast", and he thought that they had been the worst four days of his life. He, positively, had not slept : he had been driven by a wild, uncertain spirit, inspiring him now to this action and now to that, making him cry out in the middle of the night. "What is she thinking about it ? Is it changing her love for me? . . . Perhaps she doesn't love me any more, and is afraid to tell me. She didn't seem angry then when I told her, but she may not have realised — now- — : He wanted her to tell him everything, and he wanted her also never to allude to the affair again. He had confessed to her, and there was no more to be said — and yet she must say what now, after four days, she felt about it. Meanwhile she said nothing and he said nothing. There was constraint between them for the only time since their first meeting. He had thought that his confession would have smashed the cobwebs — it had only made them the more blinding. Meanwhile it was all so desperately serious to him that he simply could not endure the watching and waiting family. His insistent desire that 'things should be perfect' had from the beginning been balked by the family's presence, now his sense that they all wanted to take Katherine away from him awroke in him. a real hysterical nightmare of baffled im- potence. He would willingly have strangled Aunt Aggie, Henry and Mrs. Trenchard, and then set fire to the house and garden. Then, into the middle of it all, came this impossible Sunday. 254 THE GREEN MIRROR He set his teeth over the roast beef, Aunt Aggie's com- plaints and George Trenchard's hearty commonplace; directly luncheon was over he seized Katherine. "Look here! we must go for a walk — now — at once!" "My dear Phil ! I can't — there's my Sunday School at three. I haven't looked at anything." "Sunday School! Oh, my God! . . . Sunday School! Look here, Katie, if von don't walk with me first I shall 20 t/ straight down to the village pond and drown myself." "No, you mustn't do that". She seemed quite grave about it. "All right — wait for me. I'll be down in two min- utes." They set off along the road to Pelynt Cross, the thin sea mist driving in their faces. He broke out : "I must go away from here. To-mor- row, at once — I simply can't stand it any longer." "Can't stand what ?" "Seeing you swallowed up by the family, who all hate me and want to get rid of me. You yourself are changing -you aren't frank with me any longer. You don't say what you think. What use am I here anyway? What good is it my hanging round doing nothing? I'm sick of it. I'm los- ing you- -I'm miserable. A Sunday like this is enough to make one commit murder." She put her hand inside his arm and drew him closer to her. "I know what it is," she said. "You've been wondering why I haven't spoken to you about what you told me the other day. You've been thinking that I ought to, haven't you ?" " 'No, it's only that I've wondered whether perhaps you've changed your mind since then. Then you didn't seem to be angry, but, thinking about it afterwards- "Why, Phil," she said, "how could there be anything dif- ferent? It's all gone, finished. You don't suppose that I ever imagined that vou'd never loved another woman before O i/ SUNDAY 255 YOU met me. I'm interested, that's all. You've told me so t> ' little about her. I'd like to know all sorts of things — even quite little unimportant things — ' "It would be much better," he said slowly, "if we just left it and didn't talk about it." "But I thought you wanted me to talk about it ?" she cried. "How funnv you are!" V ll "No, I didn't want you to talk about it. It's only that I didn't like there being constraint--! don't see why you should care. It's like talking about someone who's dead." "But she isn't dead. Do you suppose, Phil — would she, do you think, like you to go back ?" "No, I'm sure she wouldn't — at least I don't think so." "Was she the kind of woman who forgets easilv, who can O t/ 7 put people out of her life just as she wants to ?" "Anna . . ." His voice lingered over the name. "No, I don't think she ever forgot. She was simply independent." "Would she think of your boy and want him back ?" "She might." He suddenly stopped. "She might. That evening he was so ill she Katherine looked across the fields to Pelynt Cross, dim and grey beneath the rain. "She had a heart, then," she said slowly. He suddenly wheeled about with his face to Garth. He spoke sharply and roughly in a voice that she had never heard him use before. "Don't, Katie — leave her alone. What do you go on about her for ?" "But if it's all dead ?" "Oh, drop it, I say ! That's enough." She knew that she was a fool, but something — or was it somebody ? — drove her on. "But you said just now that you wanted me to be frank." His voice was a cry. "You'll drive me mad, Katie. You don't seem to have any conception- 256 THE GREEN MIRROR "Very well. I won't say anything." They were quite silent after that : the silence swelled, like a rising cloud, between them : it became impossible to break it ... they were at Garth gates, and they had not spoken. She would have said something, but he turned abruptly off into the garden. She walked, with her head up, into the house. She went up to her room, arranged her Sunday School books, felt suddenly a grinding, hammering fatigue, as though she had been walking all day ; her knees were trembling and her throat was dry. She sat by her window, looking down on to the garden, where the sea mist drove in walls of thin rain against the horizon. Behind the mist the trees seemed to peer at her as though they were wondering who she was. "I don't care," she thought, "he shouldn't have spoken to me like that." But how had it happened ? At one moment they had been so close together that no force, no power, would separate them — a word and they had been so far apart that they could not see one another's eyes. "I don't care. He shouldn't- She got up, rubbed her cheeks with her hand because they were burning, and, with a glance at Philip's photograph (someone she had known years ago and would never know again), went out. The house was silent, and she met no one. As she crossed the lawn she thought : "How absurd ! We've quarrelled — a real quarrel" — then — "It wasn't my fault. He shouldn't- She held her head very high indeed as she walked down the road to the Bridge, but she saw no one, felt no rain upon her cheek, was not conscious that she was mov- ing. At the door of the Schools she saw Mrs. Smart, and heard someone say quite sensibly and happily: "We're early. There won't be many this afternoon, I expect." "Mrs. Douglas has told me that she won't be able to come — I wonder, Katie, whether you'd mind taking — " "Why, of course." SUNDAY 257 Mrs. Smart was little and round and brown like a pippin. She was always breathless from having more to wrestle with than she could grasp. She was nervous, too, and short- sighted, and the one governing motive of her life was to bear her husband a son. She had now four daughters; she knew that her husband felt it very deeply. She had once un- burdened herself to Katherine, but, after that, had been shyer with her than before. Katherine, against her will, had been often irritated by Mrs. Smart — she had wondered at her restlessness and incapacity to keep up with the business in hand, but to-day, out of the sinister gloom of that horrible afternoon, the little woman seemed to Katie suddenly sym- pathetic, eloquent, moving. Katie could hear her voice, rather husky, rather uncertain, on that afternoon of her con- fession : ". . . and we did really hope that Lucy would be a boy, we really did. He would have been called Edward. Harold has such plans for a son — we have often thought together what we would do ... and now, I'm afraid. ..." Inside the schoolroom door Katie paused, looked at the room with the bare benches arranged in squares, the shining maps of the world and Europe, the case with beetles and butterflies, the hideous harmonium. She suddenly caught Mrs. Smart's hand and pressed it through the damp little glove. She knew that Mrs. Smart would be surprised — she had never been demonstrative to her before. . . . She moved to her part of the room, three only of her class were present, and to these were added two small bovs from another division. t/ "Now, children," said Mr. Smart's cheerful voice (he always spoke to boys as though he were luring animals into a cage), "let us start with hymn No. 436, shall we?" After the hymn, a prayer, and then, for an hour that subdued, re- strained hum which belongs to the Sunday School only ; being religious as well as disciplined, persuasive as well as obedient. Katherine now was very proud — as she said : "Well, Robin, and what did Moses do then ?" she was thinking — "But he 25 S THE GREEX MIRROR must corne to rue — that's fair. It was not rav fault. He t blamed me first for not speaking, and afterwards when I did speak. . . . Besides, if it's all over and finished, why should he mind '" She looked verv vounsr as she sat there, t t, / her mouth hard and set and her eves full of trouble. Her t, sensation was as though she had been suddenlv marooned ; the <_- c / desolation, the terror, the awful loneliness came, as the eve- ning fell, creeping up towards her. "Suppose he never makes it up — Suppose he goes away and leaves me.'' She caught her hands tightly together on her lap and her breath suddenly left her. "Yes. Johnny. His name was Aaron. That's right." The ordeal was over : she was hurrvin^ back throuah the • dusk to the lighted house. She went up again to her room, and sat down aaain bv the window. She listened. The v — *. house was very still, but she thought that, perhaps, he would guess that she was here, in her bedroom, and would come up. She wished that her heart would stop beating so that she misht hear the better. <^ She listened to every sound, to distant voices, to the whim- per of rain upon the window, to the sharp crack of some shut- ting door. Her whole mind now was concentrated upon his coming: her eves left the window and turned to the door. <. She waited. . . . Quite suddenly, as though someone else had commanded her, she becran to crv. She did not move her hands to her 7 face, but little dry sobs shook her body. She hated herself for her weakness, and then that very contempt broke her down completely, so that with her hands pressed against her face, desolately and almost, it might seem, ironically, she wept. Through her crying she heard the door open, and, looking up, saw her mother there. Mrs. Trenchard closed the door very carefully. '"'Why, Katherine !'' she said in a whisper. as though this were a matter simply between the two of them. "I came to see," said Mrs. Trenchard, "whether you weren't coming in to tea. The Drakes are here'1 SUNDAY 259 It was no use to pretend that she had not been crying. She rubbed her eyes with her handkerchief, turning her back for a moment on her mother and gazing down on to the dark lawn that had all melted now into the rain. Then, when she had gained her control, she faced the room again. "It's nothing, mother. I've had a headache. It's better. I'll lie down a little and then come in. Is Agnes Drake here i" "Yes. She wants to see you." "Well, rilcome." But Mrs. Trenchard did not go away. Her large soft eyes never left her daughter's face. "What's really the matter, dear ?" "Really — a headache. This weather and then Sunday School. I felt bad in church this morning." "You've been unlike yourself, dear, for some days." "No, mother — I've been just the same." "You've been unhappy." Katherine raised her head proudly and gave back her mother's gaze. "There's been nothing — nothing at ail- But Mrs. Trenchard's eyes never faltered. She suddenly, with an action that was full of maternal love, but love re- strained by fear of its rejection, love that had tenderness in its request to be accepted, raised her hands as though she would take her daughter, and hold her safe and never let her depart into danger again. :'Katie — " her voice was soft, and she let her hands fall again. "Give it up, dear. Break the engagement. Let him go." Katherine did not answer, but she raised her head higher than it had been before, and then, suddenly, as though the irony of her whole relationship with her mother, with Philip, with the very world itself, had driven in upon her, she smiled. Mrs. Trenchard went on: "You aren't happy, Katie, 260 THE GKEEN MIKKOK darling. We all notice it. It was so sudden, the engagement. You couldn't tell at the time. But now — I've never said anything, have I ? You've seen that I've been perfectly fair, but you know that I've never liked him — I said give it its chance. But now that he's been down here, you can judge how different we all are — it's plain that it won't do. Of course you couldn't tell at the time. But now — ': "Ah," Katherine said quietly, "that's why you asked him here. I wondered." At the sudden hostility in Katherine's voice Mrs. Tren- chard started. Then, quite timidly, as though she were asking some great favour, she said: "You mustn't be angry with me for that. I only care about your happiness. I'm older — If I think that you are not go- ing to be happy I'm worried and distressed of course. What can he be to me compared with you ? And lately you yourself have been different — different to all of us . . . Yes . . . You know that if I thought that he would make you happy. . . ." Her voice was quickly sharp sounding on a trembling, quivering note. "Katie — give him up. Give him up. There'll be somebody much better. There are all of us. Give him up, darling. Tell him that you don't love him as you thought vou did." Is <^> iJ "Ko, I don't," said Katherine, her voice low. "I love him more than ever I thought I could love anything or any- one. I love him more every day of my life. Why you — all of you — " She broke away from her fierceness. She was gentle, putting her hand against her mother's cheek, then bending forward and kissing her. "You don't understand, mother. I don't understand my- self, I think. But it will be all right. I know that it will. . . . You must be patient with me. It's hard for him as well as for you. But nothing — nothing — can change me. If I loved him before, I have twice as much reason to love him now." Mrs. Trenchard looked once more at Katherine, as though SUNDAY 261 she were seeing her for the last time, then, with a little sigh, she went out, very carefully closing the door behind her. Meanwhile, another member of the Trenchard family, namely Henry, had found this especial Sunday very difficult. He always hated Sunday because, having very little to do on ordinary days of the week, he had nothing at all to do on Sunday. Never, moreover, in all his life before had the passing of time been so intolerably slow as it had during these last weeks. The matter with him, quite simply, was that his imagination, which had been first stirred on that afternoon of Philip's appearance, was now as lively and hun- gry as a starved beast in a jungle. Henry simply didn't know what to do with himself. Miserably uncertain as to c/ his right conduct in the matter of Philip and Katherine, speculating now continually about adventures and experiences in that wrider world of which he had had a tiny glimpse, needing desperately some definite business of preparation for business that would fill his hours, and having nothing of the sort, he was left to read old novels, moon about the fields and roads, quarrel with Millie, gaze forebodingly at Kath- erine, scowl at Philip, have some moments of clumsy senti- ment towards his mother, bite his nails and neglect his ap- pearance. He began to write a novel, a romantic novel with three men asleep in a dark inn and a woman stealing up the ricketty stairs with a knife in her hand. That was all that he saw of the novel. He knew nothing at all about its time nor place, its continuation nor conclusion. But he heard the men breathing in their sleep, saw the moonshine on the stairs, smelt the close, nasty, beery smell of the tap-room below, saw the high cheek-bones and large nose of the woman and the gleaming shine of the knife in her hand. He walked for many miles, to Rafiel, to St. Lowe, to Dumin Head, inland bevond Itasselas. to Pendennis Woods. * v ' to Polchester, to the further side of Pelynt — and always, as 262 THE GREEN MIRROR he walked with his head in the air, his Imagination ran before him like a leaping, towering flame. The visions before his soul were great visions, but he could do nothing with them. He thought that he would go forth and deliver the world, would love all men, prostitutes, lepers, debauchers (like Philip) ; he flung his arms about, tumbled over his untidy boot laces, saw life as, a gorgeous-tinted plain, with fame and glory awaiting him — then returned to Garth, quar- relled with Millie, sulked and bit his nails. This was a hard time for Henrv. t He had determined that he would not present himself in the drawing-room at tea-time, but when half-past four ar- rived, the afternoon had already stretched to such ghastly lengths that something had to be done. He came slipping, stumbling downstairs, and found Philip, with a waterproof turned up over his ears and every sign of the challenger of wild weather, standing in the hall. Henry would have passed him in silence, but Philip stopped him. "Look here," he said, in a low mysterious voice, "will you do something for me ?" "What ?" said Henry, suspiciously. "I'm going out for a long walk. Shan't be back until sup- per. Give this letter to Katherine, and tell her I want her to read it before I get back." "Why don't you give it to her yourself ? She's up in her room." "Because I want you to." Henry took the letter, and Philip was gone, sending into the house a little gust of cold wind and rain as he plunged through the door. Henry looked after him, shook his head as though the destinies of the world were on his shoulders, put the letter into his pocket and went into the drawing-room. The Drake family was calling. There were Mrs. Drake, old and sharp and weather-beaten, like a sign post on the top of a hill; her son, Francis Drake, who, unlike his famous namesake, seemed unable to make up his mind about any- SUKDAY 263 thing, was thin and weedy, with staring eyes, and continually trying to swallow his fist; and little Lettice Drake, aged seven, fifteen years younger than any other in the family; her parents had never entirely got over their surprise at her appearance : she was sharp and bony, like her mother. Mrs. Trenchard, Aunt Aggie and Millie were entertaining ; Great- Aunt Sarah was seated in state, in black silk and white cap, and her stern eye was fixed upon Mr. Drake, whose appear- ance she did not like. This made Mr. Drake very nervous. 9.1 Afternoon-tea on Sunday comes at the very moment when the day seems most unbearable- -Later, at about six o'clock, Sunday fatigue will happily begin to descend and envelop its victims, but at half-past four one is only able to remember that it is a mistake to have so large a meal in the middle of the day, that Sunday clothes are chill and uncomfortable, and that all the people in whom one has the least interest in life will shortly make their appearance. There is also the prospect of evening service, followed by cold supper : the earlier hours of the day stretch now behind one at so vast and unwieldy a length that it seems impossible that one will ever reach the end of the day alive. Aunt A«;oie felt all this — she also hated the Drakes. She saw that *— ><—) Henry, moody in a corner by himself, regarded her with a cynical eye : her tooth, which had been quiet since luncheon, was throbbing again. She endeavoured to be pleasant to little Lettice, although she hated children, and she knew / t, * ' that children knew it. •''Wonderfully she's grown !" she said, bending down to- wards the child, who watched her with cold curiosity. "And what's your favourite game now, Lettice ? Too old for dolls, I expect." There was no reply. "Tell Miss Trenchard about your games, dear," said Mrs. Drake. There was no reply. "You must come and play here one day, dear," said Aunt 264 THE GREEN MIEEOR Aggie. "Such a big room as we've got upstairs — and lots of toys. You'd like that, wouldn't you ?" There was no reply. "She's shy, I expect/' said Mrs. Drake. "So many chil- dren are." Aunt Aggie drew nearer to Lettice. "You mustn't be shy with me, dear. I'm so proud of chil- dren. You shall have such a piece of cake in a minute !" But with a little movement of her bony fingers Lettice Drake, in a voice of chill detachment, said: "You've got a thpot on your faith," referring to a little black mole on Aunt Aggie's right cheek. The voice was so chill, the indifference so complete that the failure of Aunt Aggie's tactics was obvious to the dullest onlooker. Unfor- tunately Henry laughed; he had not intended to laugh: he did not feel at all in a humorous mood — but he laughed from nervousness, discomfort and disgust. He knew that Aunt Aggie would not forgive this ... he hated quarrels with Aunt Aggie. She did not look at him, but her back told him what she was thinking. He wished, bitterly, that he had more self-control ; he knew that, of all possible insults, Aunt Aggie would regard most bitterly a mock at her appearance in a public place. The Drakes might be considered a public place. Mrs. Trenchard said : "Where's Katie ? You'd like to see her, Agnes, I'm sure. Perhaps she doesn't know you're here. I'll see. I know you'd like to see her." Mrs. Trenchard went \J away. Then Aunt Sarah, who had been hitherto absolutely silent, began, her eye never leaving Mrs. Drake's face. "You're the daughter of Aggie Mummings, whom I used to know. You must be. Poor Aggie ... I remember your mother quite well — a feeble thing always, never knowing her mind and always wanted people's advice. I used to say to her: 'Aggie, if you let men see how feeble you are you'll never get married'- -but she did after all- -which shows you never can tell — I think, Millie, I'll have some more hot in SUNDAY 265 this . . , yes, I remember your mother very well, poor thing." "I've heard her speak of you, Miss Trenchard," said Mrs. Drake. Mr. Drake suddenly attacked Millie. "Well now — about Paris — you know — very different from this hole, ain't it ?" "Very different/' said Millie. "But I don't consider this t_> food. She had had a wretched day. Katherine, before lunch- eon, had been utterly unsympathetic, Henry at tea-time had laughed at her. ... At any rate, in a minute, there would b 5 soup. On Sunday evening, in order to give the servants freedom, they waited upon themselves, but soup was the one concession to comfort. Aunt Aggie thought she would have her soup and then go up quietly to bed. One eye was upon the door, looking for Rocket. Her tooth seemed to promise her : "If you give me soup I won't ache." "Beef, Aggie — or chicken," said Mrs. Trenchard. "No soup to-night, I'm afraid. They've all got leave to-night, even Rocket and Rebekah. There's a meeting at the Chapel that seemed important . . . yes . . . beef or chicken, Aggie?" Aunt Aggie, pulling all her self-control together, said: "Beef, please." Her tooth, savage at so direct an insult, leapt upon her. 272 THE GREEN MIKEOE Aunt Betty, in her pleasant voice, began a story. "I must sav I call it strange. In the 'Church Times' for this week fj ^— ' there's a letter about 'Church-Kneelers' by 'A Vicar7 — com- plaining, you know . . . Well- "Beef or chicken, Millie?" said Mrs. Trenchard. "Chicken, please," said Millie. "Shall I cut the bread ?" "White, please,'7 said Henry. "Well- went on Aunt Betty. "As I was saying, on 'Church-Kneelers' signed by 'A Vicar'. Well, it's a very curi- ous thing, but you remember, Harriet, that nice Mr. Red- path—" "One moment, Betty, please," said Mrs. Trenchard. "ISTot so much as that, Harry. Simply the leg. Thank you, dear. Simply the leg. That nice Mr. Redpath — with the nice wife and so many dear little children — he was curate to Mr. Williams of St. Clemens for years. Harriet, you'll remember — one year all the children had scarlet fever to- gether, and two of the poor little things died, although I couldn't help thinking that really it was rather a mercy — " "Mustard, please," said Henry. "More beef, Aggie ?" said Mrs. Trenchard. "IsTo, thank you," said Aggie, snapping her teeth upon a piece of bread. She was thinking: "How selfish they all are! Thev can't see how I'm suffering!" e/ O 'Well, that Mr. Redpath- -You must remember him, Har- riet, because he had a red moustache and a rather fine white forehead- -when he left Mr. Williams got a living some- where in Yorkshire, near York, I think, or was it Scarbor- ough ? Scarborough, because I remember when I wrote to congratulate him he answered me in such a nice letter, and said that it would be just the place for the children. You remember, Katherine, I showed it you." "Yes," said Katherine. Henry, hearing her voice, looked across at her and then dropped his eyes upon his plate. She seemed herself again. Had her letter made her SUNDAY 273 happy ? With a sudden start he realised that Millie also was watching her. . . "Well, it must have been about 1900 that Mr. Kedpath went to Scarborough. I remember it was the year before that dreadful wet school treat here, when we didn't know where to put all the children. I know the year after he went there poor Mrs. Redpath died and left him with ail those little children—" Just at that moment Philip came in. He came with the spray of the sea still wet upon his cheeks, his hair shining with it. His colour flaming, his eyes on fire. He had been, in the wind and darkness, down the Rafiel Road to the point above Tredden Cove where the sea broke inland. Here, deaf- ened by the wind, blinded by the night, the sea-mist, now lashing his face, now stroking it softly with gentle fingers, he had stood on the edge of the world and heard the waters that are beyond the world exult in their freedom and scorn for men. He, too, standing there, had had scorn for him- self. He had seen Katherine's eyes as she turned from him in the garden, he had seen his own wretched impatience and temper and selfishness. "P;y heaven," he thought, as he strode back, "I'll never be so contemptible again. I'll make them all trust me and like me. As for Katherine . . ." and so he burst in upon them, without even brushing his hair first. Also, the only vacant chair was next to Aunt Aggie. . . . Aunt Betty, who thought that Philip's entry had been a little violent and abrupt, felt that she had better cover it with the continuation of her story. "And so the next year Mr. Redpath married again — quite a young woman. I never saw her, but Nelly Hickling knew her quite well. She always said that she reminded her of Clara Foster. You know, Harriet, the younger one with the dark hair and pretty eyes." But Philip had looked across at Katherine, her eyes had met his, and very faintly, as it were secretly, she smiled: ike whirl of that encounter had hidden Aunt Betty's voice 274 THE GKEEN MIKROK from him. He did not know that he was interrupting her. "It was a good walk, and it's raining like anything. The sea was coining in over the Cove like thunder." No one answered him, and he realised suddenly that all the food was cold. No matter: he was used to Sunday sup- per hy this time, and he was of a ferocious hunger. "Lots of beef, please/7 he said, with a laugh. Aunt Aggie shuddered. Her tooth was in her eye and her toes at the same moment ; Annie had forgotten to call her, there had heen no eggs for breakfast, Katherine at luncheon had been unsympathetic, at tea, before strangers (or nearly strangers), Henry had laughed at her, at supper there had been no soup,